Kingdom Hearts/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

This page is for Headscratchers that apply specifically to ''Kingdom Hearts I'' as well as to the series in general. If your Headscratcher focuses on one game more than the other, put it in that game's Headscratcher page.

 

 

See also:

 

 

** That is the main reason this troper has avoided the games like the plague.

** On a related note, I asked and they said none of the characters from the games before [[Final Fantasy VII]] show up. Why?

** Weapon type names are generally pretty uninspired. Broadsword? Claymore?

*** Wait, what? I get broadsword, as it's a broad sword, but claymore? Because it... clays more? It's not a great example of uninspired names.

* If meddling isn't allowed, why the hell does Mickey send [[Donald Duck]] & Goofy? How the hell doesn't anyone from a world where only humans can talk, question the fact that there are suddenly talking animals?

** Most of the worlds they visit already have strange inhabitants that aren't all humans (for example, Wonderland, Olympus Coliseum, Atlantica, Neverland, etc.). Traverse Town is a world where people from different worlds all show up, so there is a possibility that the population of TT has its fair share of anthropomorphic beings in addition to humans. However, for a world like Deep Jungle, I have no clue why the humans there aren't weirded out by Donald and Goofy.

** RE: "the Heartless and Nobodies are named the ''opposite'' of what they really are", notice how many entries on this page are derived from that. Wasn't it absolutely clear that the Heartless were defined as "beings with no hearts" in the first game? Why change it completely just to complicate the plot and confuse the hell out of everyone?

*** Remember: {{spoiler|The original concept of Heartless, the darkness in hearts of living beings given shape and form by a "natural" process, corresponds to the "pureblood" heartless such as shadows and darkballs, which don't release hearts when defeated. You're talking about the Emblem (Artificial) heartless who DO release a captive heart when destroyed. Those heartless were created by machines that forcefully reproduced the process of a heart being consumed. A Nobody comes to existence when someone's heart is consumed and creates a pureblood heartless. It is assumed that Artificial/Emblem heartless have nothing to do with this process}}.

**** Mmm, Heartlessberry smoothies...

*** Irrelevant, but that comment and the one that spawned it has me [[Crowning Moment of Funny|rolling on my ass with laughter]].

*** As far as I know, the name "Heartless" is more of a metaphor than anything. They ''have'' hearts, they just can't really use them. Like, if you called a person heartless, you'd be saying they were cruel, but not actually that they literally had no heart. It's the same with the Heartless. A quote by Luxord mentioned earlier says that when a Heartless is destroyed, it releases a captive heart. The captive heart is the Heartless's original heart. Heartless are simply hearts corrupted by darkness and turned into monsters. When Sora or another Keyblade wielder kills a Heartless, the heart is released from the darkness and goes to Kingdom Hearts. So yes, the Heartless have hearts. Nobodies, on the other hand, are the body and mind that were left behind when the Heartless was created. Does this explain it?

***** To Sum Up: In the [[Kingdom Hearts]] universe, all living creatures consist of three parts, the physical body, the soul, and the heart (not to be confused with the actual blood-pumping heart). Every heart has within it a small spark of Darkness (supernatural evil) which is what gives that person the capacity to do evil, similar to original sin in Christianity. This spark can be stimulated to grow in a number of ways, including feeling intense negative emotion, using dark magic, having dark magic used on you, and being bitten by a Heartless. When the darkness in a heart grows great enough, the heart detaches from the body and becomes a monster called a Heartless, which is composed of the wrecked heart and a large field of dark energy. The body and soul left behind will then either die or become a different type of monster known as a Nobody. The exact functions of the Heart and Soul are unclear. The heart is known to serve a role in memory and emotion, especially the emotional bonds between individuals. How this interacts with the physical brain's capacity for those functions is unclear. The soul has almost no known defined functions. There are at least two incidents (Xehanort and Sora) where a Heartless displays the full range of Human cognitive functions - what this means is anyone's guess. This is all in my understanding of course.

** Xehanort's and Sora's Heartless retained full range of human cognitive functions because both willingly became Heartless. Also, I believe the Ansem Reports in the sequel say that the soul serves the purpose of animating the body and giving it life, while the heart is the spiritual center of the person. Someone's soul leaving their body kills them, but somebody's heart leaving them allows them to stay alive... but not quite human.

** I always thought that since the Heartless were hearts, the released hearts were them.

** Heartless come when a heart is consumed by darkness. They ARE hearts turned into black holes. Hearts can't have hearts.

* In Kingdom Hearts 1, in Agrabah, Aladdin could just wish the Heartless away and make everything go back to normal, but he uses the wish to free Genie. But why didn't he just hand the lamp to Sora, let him wish them away, plus wish for two more things he wanted (that boat to get finished, for example), then just take it back and set Genie free? It can be explained away in the movie by him not really having anyone to trust with it, but Sora had just easily proved himself a trustworthy ally.

** In-Game Reason: It actually wouldn't do much good. Genie's power does have its limits, so we have no idea if he could actually destroy all of the Heartless. Eventually, more of them would probably just appear anyway. Not to mention the fact that the Disney villains are still out there and know about Heartless and other worlds, and getting to the sentient ones like "Ansem" might fall under the no-killing rule. (He may not be human, be he's just as smart as one, and Jafar couldn't kill Iago in the second movie.) There are also issues of where Riku and Kairi are, not to mention the fact that even if Sora doesn't know about them at the time, Organization XIII is still out there, and nobody's safe. Also, it may be a violation of the no meddling with other worlds rule.

** Out of Game Reason: From a story standpoint, it would be a really bad idea for any Disney characters not created by Walt himself to be monumentally important to the plot, because it would make everything even more complicated than it already is. All of the Disney characters without direct ties to the Mickey Mouse franchise are there to serve as minor characters in the universe, and guest-stars in their individual levels. Summons are fine, since they're just a gameplay element, and the only effect we see them having on the story is certain characters being familiar with Sora despite never going to their worlds (like Simba and Mushu). It would be like Tarzan becoming a permanent companion throughout the worlds. Having Genie magically fix everything wouldn't just be a boring way to end the story, but it would ruin the effect of limiting the involvement of the Disney movie characters in the plot, which works very well to establish the game as its own entity and not some random cash-grab with a bunch of popular cartoon characters in it.

* Why wasn't Ariel, from ''The Little Mermaid'' a Princess of Heart? You'd think Disney would want said princesses to be all six of the "Disney Princesses". And why was she replaced by ''Alice'' of all people?

** Because she'd need to be kept in a really big fish bowl at Hollow Bastion.

**** Don't forget, Square would have had to get rid of a party member by having Ariel get taken. Plus, how would she be captured? Donald's magic was the only reason they could breathe in Atlantica.

*** That, plus "disobeying" her father by going to the surface world may or may not have played a part in it.

** As for why Alice is a Princess of Heart, it works with having Wonderland as one of the first few game worlds. The heroes are alerted to the disappearance of young girls early in the quest, instead of not finding out until they get all the way to Agrabah.

* Why hasn't Gaston appeared yet?

** Because this isn't 4chan.

**** Gaston is a minor meme on 4chan. He's considered a [[Chuck Norris]] wannabe/[[Furry Fandom|furry slayer]].

**** Because he was replaced by [[Blow You Away|Xaldin]] as the antagonist in the Beast's story, and there's really no other role ''for'' him.

********* Lazy programmers. Destructible objects are a real bitch. Besides, that would be the only cool thing about his fight. Clayton had a modern rifle, but barring an anachronism by Maleficent handing it off to Gaston, he'll be stuck with a musket.

********** Most significantly, adding Gaston to the Beast/Belle storyline would bring in the personal dynamics that defined Gaston in the film -- that is, the fact that it's clearly implied that Belle's relationship is what drove him to action against the Beast. This plot had already been explored enough times, so emphasizing the primary plot of the film (the one centered around the rose) kept the writing down to a level balanced with other worlds.

************ They should have ditched Tarzan and used both Junglebook and Gaston. Nobody can truly replace Gaston.

* What was the voice that Sora heard at the end of Kingdom Hearts one? (The one that was reassuring him that he has the "mightiest weapon of all")

*** I always figured it was the Light. The Darkness has that volcano-dwelling Satan figure as a potential head-honcho (too bad "Ansem" completely overshadows him), so why WOULDN'T the Light have its own headman? Especially as, apparently, Darkness = unthinking monsterhood, and Light = individual sentience and identity.

**** The Satan figure was another import from Disney: [[Fantasia|Chernabog]].

** It's confirmed to be Mickey in the Ultimania for KH1.

*** It's Mickey Mouse? It sounds ''nothing'' like Mickey! What the hell, Disney.

**** Ahem... 'sounds'? The 'voice' manifests as ''text on a screen''. You Fail Logic Forever.

**** I think he means that the dialogue used sounds nothing like Mickey would say.

****** Mickey- "Aww, we don't hate it. It's just kinda... Scary."

***** [[Fridge Brilliance]]: Mickey isn't talking to Sora personally, but rather to the Keyblade wielder whose name he does not know, but who he knows must be out there. This plays into the theory that the Kingdom Keys are the two halves of the X-blade.

* In Deep Jungle, Sora gets shown a slide of a castle and remarks that it looks familiar to him, even though he's never been outside of Destiny Islands before. Two games later and we haven't seen a structure remotely like it yet. Was it a stray plot hook that just got forgotten?

** [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|Because that would make for a rather boring game]].

** You mean the [[Rule of Cool]] isn't enough explanation?

**** Who's to say he didn't have one; after all, there was that thing with the door in the flashback in Monstro -- perhaps his came around the time Kairi showed up...

*** Riku actually does get a Keyblade: Soul Eater (that bat-wing-sword thing he uses) turns out to be the proto-form of Way to Dawn, the Keyblade he uses in the latter segments of Kingdom Hearts II.

** I believe it was stated in the ultimania that that was Mickey readying him for what was coming, and that Sora was never actually meant to receive one on his own, rather the theory is that he pulled Riku's keyblade from his heart in a moment of pure darkness.

** Well, I have thought about this too and, YES, Sora actually IS dark. I mean, he's the only one of the three, who actually became a Heartless, and he still has the ability to become one, when his body is disabled (Anti Form). Darkness is not always bad. As Riku said "We're just afraid, of what's inside...". But if you search long enough in the darkness, you MAY find a hidden treasure! Riku did (after a few disastrous attempts) find some cool, black-magic spells inside and maybe Sora will one day learn to control Anti Form, maybe even how to give other Heartless their minds back! ...OK, this last sentence kinda belongs into the WMG.

*** Uh, so then is there a point to the Twilight, or was that just an excuse to give Riku a Keyblade?

**** I guess, if this vein of thought is accurate, that Twilight is a person who embraces both light and darkness, darkness is a kind of narrow-minded fighter, and light is a pacifist who relies solely on their glowing powers to see them through. Alternatively, though, Riku could be dark, Sora twilight, and Kairi light, although they may see themselves as something else. Heh, brings me back to the Genesis/Sephiroth/Angeal/??? -- Hero/Prisoner/Wanderer question raised by Crisis Core. It's true: Kingdom Hearts is the new Final Fantasy VII.

*** Or you're just overthinking it so it can fit into your particular pet theory.

**** Does that make me more incorrect then the previous theory? Or, for that matter, more correct? I was just stating an option and my opinion. Take it or leave it.

*** No.

*** Maybe.

*** There are actually two different twilights during a day: Dawn, where darkness shifts to light, and Dusk, where light shifts to darkness.

*** In my theory, I believe the concept from the troper above. Kairi is of course Light, Riku is Dusk and Sora is Dawn. Reason? Sora cannot be Dark because of the Keyblade and {{spoiler|Ventus. Because of what happened before [[Bb S]], he became a person of pure light while Venitas became the personification of his darkness}}. Riku is Dusk because he was chosen by {{spoiler|Terra to succeed in using the Keyblade}} but derailed from this path of Light into the Darkness. Who is Dark, I cannot tell you because I don't know myself.

* A friend of mine thinks that [[Square Enix]] needs to stop making Kingdom Hearts games. When I expressed my disagreement, he explained that each installment just muddies up the story making it more and more confusing (never mind the fact that said friend is a huge [[Star Wars]] fan, need I say more about their confusing storyline?), he also doesn't like that they keep adding [[Final Fantasy]] characters and [[Retcon|retconning]] their back-stories to fit in the KH storyline. When I told him that [[Kingdom Hearts]] is a different continuity from the [[Final Fantasy]] games and that none of the interactions between FF and [[Disney]] characters is meant to be [[Canon]] to their respective stories, he dismissed it as me being the only one to say that. The problem is that I say that because I remember reading it somewhere on the [http://kingdomhearts.wikia.com/wiki/Kingdom_Hearts_Wiki Kingdom Hearts Wiki]. Can anyone else back me up on this?

** You are indeed correct. Perhaps you could direct your friend in the direction of the wiki?

** I agree with your friend that the story with each passing game is getting more and more confusing, but the Final Fantasy characters aren't and never have been the same versions as from their respective games. Your friend must have gotten so confused by the other stuff in the series that he missed out on an obvious detail.

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* Even though you might just say that this plot hole is simply because Square didn't come up with this element of the plot yet, it is still a question why Sora never encountered any Nobodies in Kingdom Hearts 1. If a Nobody is created every time a Heartless is, and Sora sees tons of Heartless, where are all the Nobodies? It is a mystery why no member of Organization 13 ever tries to shut down Sora's Disney-villain killing spree.

 

[[Category:Games/Headscratchers]]

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