The Nature of the Lights and Darknesses

Something I find strange about this whole thing. Part of the story treats the clash of the 13 darknesses and 7 lights as a preordained thing, but for Xehanort's plan to work at all the only thing that can be preordained is that darkness and light will clash at all.
There have been numerous debates about who the lights really are, who the darknesses are but... for any of this work that has to NOT matter.
Because the 13 darknesses are all Xehanort. He's artificially creating these circumstances, thus, by the same notion ANYBODY with adequate light should be able to fit the role of a light, which in turn means that Xehanort having a light among his xehanorts is completely meaningless

 

Xehanort acts like having specific lights, Terra and Sora will somehow screw the lights... but it doesn't. Mickey counts the lights on his fingers, like there's some set amount... but it's not. Anybody with adequate light could do it
It seems like a weird thing to dwell on

 

I dunno, the strength is debatable, but what's more, he references Terra first, and doesn't refer to either of them by name, thereby putting the fact that they're a 'light' higher than anything else

 

In Terra's case I think he just wanted a strong body with a decent base of darkness to extend his lifespan. As for Sora, the way I understood it is that he was just a trophy to Xehanort.

As far as Mickey counting them off, it seems to be assumed that Keyblade wielders make the best guardians of light. Especially since they're about to be potentially facing nigh-twice their number of dark Keyblade wielders, all hooked up to the same consciousness.

 

Xehanort's actions involving Sora can be pretty confusing. I think what it comes down to though is that he's reached the point where he believes his plan can't fail. And truth be told he may be right on that. So long as he can get the 13 darknesses together, the seven lights are garunteed by means of the princesses. He wants keybladers as that would be closer to the legend, but he'll take either path. So if Xehanort finds his 13th (and doesn't lose another) then he has his war by action or inaction. If he did have Sora it would antagonize the others into coming after him, and if they didn't (or couldn't) he would still have the princesses of light to fall back on.

 

In a broader sense, I don't feel like there's ever been a cohesive understanding of the light/darkness relationship in the series. Like in the first game, when Sora says "Kingdom Hearts is light"... what? Where did that come from? Where during this cosmic fight to the death did he arrive upon this realization about some nebulous entity which he just heard about? Is that even true? It seems to be, given that this realization apparently has physical effects, i.e. disintegrating pseudo-Ansem. But if Kingdom Hearts is light, why were there Heartless coming out of it? In the first game, I took this to mean that the writers were saying that while people aren't perfect, all hearts are light, in essence. That is to say, human nature is fundamentally good. But then in KHII they start getting into this kind of Taoism-lite which states that light and darkness can be in harmony... even though historically speaking this has never once been the case because Sora and co. murder every single Heartless and person who associates with darkness. Now they just started pulling out arbitrary numbers about lights and darknesses and apparently people can become Keyblades (???). I don't anticipate any logical or satisfying answers to this quandary.

 

Arright. Here's the way I look at it.

Nomura did not know while writing KH that he was going to make more, right? So he made the first one to be its own, complete, all-inclusive story. Its themes are consistent relative to itself, and it delivers one solitary, powerful message: that no matter how deep the darkness, a light shines within. So, to answer your first volley of questions, the way that Sora figured out the nature of Kingdom Hearts is by connecting it to his own growth and the concepts and morals he'd been fed. Ansem told him Kingdom Hearts was the heart of all worlds—What does Sora know about hearts? There's a light in every one. He saw Heartless beyond the door, and he knew, he knew because he had just been consumed by darkness himself, that there had to be more to it. And sure enough, as if beckoned by his call, light spilled forth and obliterated Ansem. I believe the light was there before the Heartless, and they simply congregated around it because it's a heart and that's what Heartless do; but they couldn't extinguish it. It was too powerful for them, too powerful for Ansem, and that was the mistake they'd been riding since the beginning of the story. That was the moment of truth, when all their B.S. crumbled around them.

NOW. As for the rest of the series. KHII isn't really the game that pitches the "light and darkness in harmony" angle, but that comes up later. The second Kingdom Hearts seems to be stepping up a maturity level, dealing with some of the casualties of the war between light and dark and what happens to the misfits. Sora's still a lean mean darkslayin' machine in this one, but the matter is complicated by the fact that the villains' goals are more complex and in some ways align with his own. This doesn't shake the core beliefs of the series, but rather complicates them and makes them more appropriate for the series' growing audience. Where the issue of reconciling light and dark most comes into play is in CoM and 3D, where Riku features prominently: His character is a compromise between the two, at times pulled between forces and at others channeling them in perfect sync. Having another character pitch this message helps keep the main hero's motivations pure and focused, which I think is a good move as it gives everybody a little of what they want.

How is this going to continue in KHIII? Well, for those who haven't played 3D, I think the endgame of that has given us some thematic clues. Sora is no longer the naïve little boy goofing off and playing hero with his friends: He has been confronted with the consequences of his path and the number of people whose fates are in his hands. Of course, while the time he did have in the ending was spent well—spitting on Xemnas's rhetoric, reaffirming his faith in his friends and the strength it gave him, and expressing sympathy for Roxas, Xion, and Ventus—Riku ultimately stole the show, so Sora didn't get to act on what he learned. I believe this is because they were saving it for KHIII. Sora's friends are stronger and more mature than ever; and if he draws power from them, that means he'll be at his best for the final game.

That kinda went off the rails, so lemme bring it back by saying that the message Kingdom Hearts conveys overall isn't necessarily the same as the one it conveys through each character. Sora represents light, so his actions and worldviews will likely always reflect that; but that doesn't mean that the dark, his opposition, is all bad. If I had to guess, that will be a major theme of the third game, and Sora will have to face it personally. I'm interested to see what he does with it.

tl;dr don't look at the whole thing at once 'cause then it's a big confusing pile of mush; think of it as a structure, with layers and tiers of meaning stacked onto one another or added around the sides.

 

Sure, I can definitely accept that KHI was written at a time when there was a possibility that there would be no sequels, but there were definitely ideas present: most notably the reveal that Riku isn't dead in ASAS. But there's a way that sequels necessarily have to function that Nomura and co. just didn't follow at all. What exactly does Kingdom Hearts do? You're saying some kind of wish granting factory? That seems to make sense, because pseudo-Ansem asks Kingdom Hearts to shroud the world in darkness, and it looks like it's going to to so. Sora then says Kingdom Hearts is light, and so then it's light, or something. But... how come? Does it have a consciousness? Did it just decide it liked Sora better? Why? And none of the sequels do anything to clarify the nature of the titular concept/entity.

I'd also agree that the sequels make the story more complicated, but they do little to actually explore moral depth and questions. Sure, Riku is supposedly some kind of middle-road figure, but what is his "darkness" except for everything he did wrong in KH1? So Riku gave into envy, pride, and (potentially) lust and wound up betraying everyone he cared about... and now he has some kind of moral high ground on Sora because he apologized? There weren't really any lessons learned from Riku's experimentation with darkness other than "doing this will turn you into a monster which kills everything you love and makes you lose all sense of self." There's never an example of darkness being preferable to light in a particular circumstance, other than the few perks of dark powers. Is that the message here? That you should betray and nearly murder your friends so that you can eventually learn to teleport and shoot fireballs? Definitely a novel take on the Disney morality tale, I must say.

 

Not sure what that means, but the titular Kingdom Hearts is only an overarching entity in the series; it's not necessarily the thing that deserves the most focus or the most in-depth explanation. It's meant to be a looming mystery over the story, its power awesome but ultimately ineffable... at least until the series concludes. That's when the decision is made, whether we ought to know what it is or not. But no sequel is obligated to explain itself; that depends on what the writing demands.

I wasn't implying it's conscious. It didn't "like" Sora or Ansem, the energies within it simply responded to them. Ansem called upon the darkness that swelled inside it, and Sora invoked the light to destroy the dark. There is no "How come" about it—It is what it is. An unfailing light surrounded by a shroud of dark. A mirror of the function of worlds and people alike: a heart within a shell which makes the shell move. It is the progenitor of all worlds and all life. It is, in essence, essence.

The extended series confuses the matter, true, but I believe it's because we've seen a lot of instances of a "fake" Kingdom Hearts, from those who invoke its power but don't have direct access to it. Depending on your persuasion you may wish to believe that Ansem's, Xemnas's, and/or Master Xehanort's were fakes, but considering the differences in appearance and function it's safe to say they don't all represent the true Kingdom Hearts. The fact that it appears before anyone with the power to summon it lends credence to this—That, or it's not actually a physical location but a state of being, or a non-Euclidean space that can be transformed and manipulated by the will/hearts of others. Perhaps it appears as the viewer wills it to, in other words. But that is in keeping with the idea that it is essence.

Riku's "darkness" is his anger, his desperation, his vengeful side, his ruthlessness. He employs it selfishly when he steals Sora's Keyblade and makes trouble for him, because in his desperation to save Kairi he deems any necessary sacrifice worth it. He knows he can't control it at that point, but he doesn't care. In CoM he tries to prove himself stronger than the darkness, but in the end realizes he's stuck with it either way and decides to begin learning how to control it. The events of Days delay this, however, and Riku makes the same mistake again: sacrificing too much to achieve his goals. Not only in the fact that he lets Ansem's form take over again to defeat Roxas, but even before that demonstrates his disregard for Xion and Roxas's existence in his bid to restore Sora. He has to pay for all of this in KHII, and in his shame he refuses to face his friends; but in the end their love for him overcomes his guilt. They've already forgiven him, now he just needs to forgive himself.

In 3D Riku has both embraced his darkness and learned to control it; thus his final exam begins. The reason he uses dark powers freely now isn't because he didn't learn his lesson or because Squeenix is preaching a janked-up moral—It's because he accepts the darkness, respects it, and maintains it. He has no reason to refrain from using something that once hurt his friends, because now he has the acute control and can turn it only against his enemies. The fog has lifted from his mind and his heart; when he encounters people going through issues he once faced, he reassures and advises them with confidence. He knows better than anyone what it's like to be down in that dark place, but it wouldn't be a good moral for him to be punished, or to transform completely from who he once was. That would be learning nothing. Instead, he understands that the people he hurt have survived, that they have forgiven him, and that he must master this power, not forsake it, if he wants to stop hurting people.

Light is something that comes naturally to Riku as a well-intentioned person, but darkness also comes naturally to him as well, as he is slightly more world-weary and bitter than Sora and his temper flares on occasion. The darkness isn't just "everything he did wrong;" what he did wrong is what he did wrong, the darkness just manifested in the emotions that led him down that path. But those emotions could also give him strength and make him better able to defend his allies. Rather than try to change, he simply becomes a better version of himself: learning to use those forces for good, rather than let the current carry him away. Hugs for the fans and hatchets for the haters. Light and dark working together in harmony.

 

What I mean by the sequels failing to work is that yes, sequels are obligated to explain themselves if they completely contradict their predecessors. Kingdom Hearts I functioned on a very simple logical construction: light is good, darkness is bad. Sora opposes pseudo-Ansem's claim that darkness conquers all worlds because light is evidently "stronger" or more resilient. The thing about a fantasy series like this is that forces of light and darkness (that is, good and bad) have physical manifestations. Sora's conviction about light proves true, and pseudo-Ansem and the darkness is defeated. They didn't learn that there needs to be a balance between the two, they learned that Kingdom Hearts cannot be used as a method for destroying the world via darkness, because it is in fact light. Childish? Yes. Simple? Oh goodness yes. Simple and clean, one might say.

What I'm saying is that at no point is this proposition of light=good and darkness=bad ever seriously challenged. Yes, in Kingdom Hearts II and BBS, characters spout some kind of greater wisdom that the two must both exist, and that darkness is apparently not bad but just "scary." However, every character which is associated with darkness up to this point has been a villain which has been valiantly slain by Sora, and rightly so. That's the only reason why the conversation always steers towards Riku, because he's evidently the one exception. But he's not! After his change of heart, Riku's agenda is entirely in line with Sora's. Xemnas even refers to him as a "hero of light." If Riku were to actually act like he was a representation of both light and darkness, then I guess half the time he would help Sora and the other half he would deceive him or try to kill him. Because that's what every character associated with darkness tries to do to Sora at some point, without fail. The games clearly set up a logic in which envy, self-loathing and hatred are the path to darkness, and kindness, fidelity and courage are the path to light. The "light and darkness in harmony" line was clearly just adopted after Kingdom Hearts and continued through the rest of the games, but it just flatly contradicts the logic the original was built on, without any indication that this new ideal is ever true in practice (other than that it gives you dope fireball-shooting techniques-- again, at the cost of sacrificing your selfhood and nearly ruining everything ever).

 

First off, if you want me to know you've responded you might ought to quote me. Second, I agree! The "light-good-dark-bad" mentality has never been earnestly challenged. So... what's the contradiction again? You now defy the point that started this conversation: that the relationship is unclear. You seem to have admitted that it is clear, and that what we're talking about is not much more than speculation.

The light-dark dichotomy is exemplified in one character—better than you think imo, but I've already explained my feelings on that—but one character doesn't amount to much, even if I can type up an essay about him. The rest of the series is, in truth, consistent with the moral of purging darkness to make way for light. Sora's maturity hasn't necessarily been learning to accept the dark, but to understand that war with it is taxing and likely to harm bystanders, and that he must defend as much as he attacks.

The idea that darkness is not pure evil is mostly something I speculate the third game will play with because Nomura has said before that he intends to portray the characters' maturity and development in KHIII more than any other. If it doesn't end up in that, then perhaps some of these mystery extended-universe works Nomura's hinted at will feature them. But yes, as it stands light is good and dark is evil, with precious few exceptions. Those exceptions are worth noting in my eyes, but they remain exceptions nonetheless.

I would also add that just because light and dark are physical forces in this universe doesn't mean you should discretit their thematic, symbolic, or psychological presence, as that adds layers of meaning that may change your perspective on the story even from the first game.

 

That's not a contradiction, it's an evolution. They start off with black and white and introduce shades of grey. What's more, they introduce it with Riku, who is the perfect logical choice for this. Riku already presented the question to Sora, he used darkness, yet he was his friend. The angle they decided to take was that Riku was stuck with darkness, rather than removing it for the sequels. They introduced a new concept, they didn't contradict anything. Mere omission isn't contradiction, the fact that Megara is in KH2 but not KH1 isn't a contradiction, they just added a new element.

You're also mixing alignment with the concepts of light and darkness. A being of darkness isn't genetically coded to fight Sora. It's not a trait of using the darkness, it's a trait of someone who gets in Sora's way. Riku fought Sora after gradually being corrupted to believe he should. His using of the darkness doesn't suddenly make him want to kill Sora. What KH is clearly setting up is that darkness is a wild and dangerous power, that it's easy to become corrupted by it because it offers great power. Xehanort can cheat death, Riku can significantly raise his power in combat. Darkness is basically a bunch of cheats, and people are tempted into corruption by them. Riku was, but he then dedicated a REALLY long time to tempering that temptation.
And I just want to point out Sora can use darkness to attack in DDD, so by that logic he should be trying to kill himself or something.

And again, to parrot Nova, no story is EVER obliged to do anything. They can tell us every last detail, or leave out every single one. It's completely up to them, and it's up to the writer to make whatever their choice is work. Of ALL the problems KH's story has, this is not what I would call one of them[DOUBLEPOST=1398749477][/DOUBLEPOST]

I think KH3 needs to introduce beings related to darkness that AREN'T mindless killing machines, or a form of Xehanort. It kidna skews the graph against Sora, since while he DOES destroy a lot of darkness... it's all darkness that's trying to kill him and destroy all worlds. Now that Riku has been around for such a long time, I can't really see Sora wanting to destroy something based merely on the merit of it being darkness (though it would be kinda cool if there was a scene where he did, if done right)

 

Pff, and I'm sure you'll be happy to tell me aaaall about them another day, another thread :'D

At this late a stage, I wouldn't be that upset if they just continued as-is. Like I said, there's always room for it in another series.

 

I think it's very obvious that stories, and particularly sequels, are required to give a consistent message about the world they take place in. Part of the advantage of a sequel is that said world is already built, and yes, it can be expanded upon. But here is where I must stress this point: Kingdom Hearts is not a story into which so-called shades of grey can effectively be introduced, because it has set up a cosmology in which light and darkness are both behavioral traits and real physical forces with the capacity to destroy, and they are diametrically opposed. It's not at all inaccurate to say that beings of darkness are "genetically coded to fight Sora" other than that genetics probably doesn't exist in this universe. In every instance, if someone's attacking Sora, they are both bad and from darkness (or alternatively, Nothingness in BDSM suits), or have been tricked into doing so by someone who is. Kingdom Hearts had a simple message: while there is great darkness, a light shines within. Clearly, darkness is something to fight, to resist within oneself and in its physical manifestations, because darkness is everything that's bad about humanity.

Now, here's a moral that would make sense: it is a good and healthy and prudent thing to examine one's personal weakness, i.e. one's darkness, and to confront it, so that one is not overcome by it. But darkness is still something bad in this scenario; it's just something that can exist in good people. That's the message which kind of seems to be given, but that's completely different from saying that light and darkness are symbiotic or able to be harmonious.

 

You'd be wrong.

Except here's the thing: A lot of people and belief systems hold that our world works the same way. Yes, darkness represents wholly destructive force and negative energy. And they still maintain it as necessary and healthy. You're arguing from a standpoint that once we label something as dark, it must be destroyed; that's not the case. That's what the characters think, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the goal of the overarching narrative. People need to stop treating characters as reliable narrators; they can be wrong about their world. They can be short-sighted. They make mistakes, frequently.

Actually, they're just genetically coded to come after his heart. If they could avoid fighting for it, they probably would. Heartless are attracted to strong hearts, and that is all. Plus, if people aside from those steeped in dark oppose him, how does that help your position? (Btw, I'm pretty sure you have no idea what a BDSM suit looks like, js.)

Whooooaaaa whoa whoa whoa hold it up. Where in that did you get fighting from? Far as I can tell, it doesn't say jack squat about fighting.

It really isn't. :\ I'd encourage you to read up on Taoist philosophy, you might be surprised at what comes of it.

 

[quote="Ars Nova, post: 4174815, member: 61191"
Except here's the thing: A lot of people and belief systems hold that our world works the same way. Yes, darkness represents wholly destructive force and negative energy. And they still maintain it as necessary and healthy. You're arguing from a standpoint that once we label something as dark, it must be destroyed; that's not the case. That's what the characters think, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the goal of the overarching narrative. People need to stop treating characters as reliable narrators; they can be wrong about their world. They can be short-sighted. They make mistakes, frequently.[/quote]
I just want to add that this is especially true in KH. Despite it seeming like it would be, the world of KH isn't one where every prophecy and rumour turns out to be true. Just look at the main antagonist. Xehanort's MANY plans were all based on ultimately incorrect assumptions.
Being just plain wrong is actually a pretty common occurrence in KH, now that I think about it

 

Well, besides that there are also prophecies that seem to conflict, such as the varying descriptions of past Keyblade wielders, and things that were only half-right like Sora's dominance over the Keyblade being broken by Riku.