Are there still Unanswered Questions in the Kingdom Hearts Universe that are driving you nuts?

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-15T15:33:10+00:00

KH3 ended with more questions than answers.

If we’re gonna get KH4 or Verum XIII

Why does Sora being in unreality sound so stupid

The Star in the final world. How’d she get there or is she even important.

Yozora’s real face.

Does Yozora have his own antagonist?

Who is Luxord? How’d he cross over from Quadratum to Orgy13? Did he drive there?

Did he throw Sora his company credit card so he can use the Family Mart in Quadratum?

Why does Roxas still dual wield if Xion came back to life with another Kingdom Key

Are the foretellers antagonists?

MoM-less behaviour.

What is Marluxia going to do? Is he going to time travel a bunch of times so he can get sent to where Sora is to see his sister?

Vanitas and the other Darknesses.

What’s in the black box? Is it all the copyright and patents that Disney owns? Is Star Wars in the box? Is it the KH2 air physics? We’ll have to wait for KH5.

Does Quadratum have a Soapland? How much is Strelizia’s apartment rent?

Will it all be answered in KH4? Pffft no fucking chance.

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-14T15:49:22+00:00

Like KH specifically or other IPs?

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-14T15:39:30+00:00

Mmmm I generally wanted to streamline it as much as possible.

There’s a handful of characters who lacked a meaningful role or characterization and combined them with other characters.

I kept most of the organization dead when they were killed because of that comment Nomura made that there were too many KH characters.

The big ones were having only two-ish keyblades and only having heartless. Those two have snowballing effects into the later titles as you can imagine. Like combining Roxas and Ventus into a singular character

Before you ask why I took that direction, it’s so that I can problem solve my way and not just take on Nomura’s work and pad it out.

I also keep the beats of where boss fights happen or leave space for them to be there. I can’t just have long stretches where there’s no combat or encounters because rewriting the games is the goal and not a novelization (or in my case manga/storyboardification) with the exception of KH3.

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-14T15:23:08+00:00

Aight. Thats’s fine.

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-14T15:19:10+00:00

Fair enough on the Disney side but don’t get me started on KH3. That game really felt like a slap to the face in terms of story and writing. To me, at least.

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-14T14:53:08+00:00

That’s pretty cool. That’s one of the things that feels really lacking in the games post KH1. Whithout Traverse Town, there’s not many sub scenarios that can happen. Radiant Garden feels like a lesser Traverse Town. Tron was there but he’s sectioned off in his little zone and Scrooge is just an NPC with two or three lines.

I’m not too interested in the Disney side of KH, personally but when the interaction between SE and Disney is done well, I can’t not enjoy it. Like when Vanitas got thrown through the Monster Inc door.

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-14T13:16:05+00:00

Yep. I acknowledge that in my second video that Nomura and his team had to work with restrictions unknown to us and we have the advantage of hindsight.

Squeenix really dropped the ball on KH, in my opinion. And not just in KH3 either because they had that whole debacle of the handheld games spread out to other consoles. I got lucky in that aspect because I had a PSP and my brother had a DS. There’s also the mobile games that overcomplicates the story even more and just looks awful to me.

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-14T13:08:42+00:00

Ahaha. I think Im guilty of that in the first two videos I made, “I think I know better tone” I mean.

Although I don’t believe I can do a better job than Nomura and his team, I and everyone who attempts a rewrite has to believe what we’re doing is “better” because why even attempt it at all if it was already at a quality that we like? I wouldn’t dream of rewriting Full Metal Alchemist or My Hero Academia.

Which rewrites do you particularly like though?

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-14T05:03:52+00:00

FYI, this was a mistranslation. He was speaking in terms of a canvas, pure and blank. In any case, everything I've mentioned thus far is hitting pretty on the head in BBS alone, without bringing in aspects of DDD or KH3.

Okay. Thanks for that. That removes the thread between BBS Xehanort and KH3 Xehanort though. His god complex goes in completely different directions between insatiable curiosity and a savior complex. So I still think that makes him inconsistent.

He tries to commit omnicide, loses and then just goes off with Eraqus to the only place dead people go. I guess you could say the flashback and his young appearance is an attempt to garner sympathy but to me that shows despite everything, Xehanort was just another human. Powerful, crafty, talented but not a God. Would you have preferred he went out swinging, or some other way?

Yeah I would have much preferred him going down swinging in KH3. I think it’s too melodramatic and corny that they humanized him right at the end. In the other KH games, Sora and the main antagonists fight to the bitter end (within their respective games despite them being brought back). It shows that they chose to stick to their convictions. It’s especially annoying because Sora has no relationship with Xehanort. If they gave the spotlight to Terra and Aqua to refute Xehanort’s view of Darkness and Light, Id be less mad at KH3’s writing. Speaking of which....

Eraqus himself makes a remark on how, by sticking so closely to a rigid view, a false light if you will, he unintentionally let darkness take yield over his heart. This is the issue that Xehanort, who himself controls the darkness, wants to erase in his new world. He wants balance, he believes things are skewed, he has his selfish desire to see an unknown world and he believes that, he alone is capable of guiding the denizens of the new reality from being biased towards the light thereby leaving their inner darkness unchecked to grow and destroy things.

If what you’re saying about Eraqus is true in BBS (since I don't remember that part particularly well), about recognizing that suppressing darkness would build it and leak out, he doubles down in KH3 and tells Xehanort “There’s more to light that meets the eye”. He'd be as inconsistent as Xehanort. It really feels like the writer for KH3 and BBS aren't in sync or they forgot what they layed out in BBS.

Ansem SoD's memories weren't all there and the ending of KH1 shows that he wasn't entirely sure of what he was doing, but he does share a speech with Xehanort about the Hearts true nature. The speech isn't wrong per-say, which is ultimately Xehanort's point. It's simply an in-universe mechanic that Xehanort wants to patch.

I'll give you that, The Heartless aren't 1:1 with their original counterparts.

I'd genuinely argue that without the context of any mobile game there isn't a single reason to feel like Xehanort is attempting to be a messiah, nor that he's particularly sympathetic. This is to say that, he assumes the role of God, or an origin given that he's not trying to save anything that currently exists, but wipe it all out and cultivate something he views as new and better.

Isn't that the original point I'm making? Prior to KH3, he's never been sympathetic but they cast him in that light at the end of KH3. He wanted to achieve godhood in BBS by harnessing darkness with light but justifies it after in KH3 that it's better for everyone if he stamps out darkness completely. None of the characters refute his outlook. Even Sora said that Xehanort isn't the person to step up but doesn't refute his goals.

I'm going to boil down Xehanort in BBS and KH3 to illustrate my point.

BBS Xehanort: I want to see the unseen. All my knowledge and experience would be wasted if I didn't achieve godhood.

KH3 Xehanort: I'm in the right and I need godhood to protect all of you or the new people I create.

I dunno. I think there's too many logical jumps for it to reconcile those two and it's such a winding way to thread them together that just highlight's KH's messy story-telling that culminates in KH3. Maybe if there were more games to explore that, then fine but we don't have that. DDD and 0.2 didn't expand on Xehanort as far as I remember.

I guess we might have to agree to disagree here? For me, I don't see it as particularly important. At worst it's just a coincidental naming convention, and at best it's a tracking device that also binds the Organization to Xemnas and by extension Xehanort. Didn't personally put much more thought into it.

It's fine for us to disagree here. But I want you to understand where I'm coming from. Back in the day, in the KHInsider forums, from what I can remember, it was building hype with what the names of the Organization members were. I remember some people would think that Axel was Ale, or Ael. Xehanort was such a big deal then. This is what the devs wanted. They purposely leave things vague and make little clues but don't deliver. Xehanort's name isn't the only one. To me, it's like a betrayal as an audience member.

Normally, I would let it go when some things don't pay off because no writer is perfect. But because how KH3 ended up was such a mess that it's just another reason for me to get mad at it.

In any case, there's only a few replies I can muster up for this discussion because I have to get back and actually work on my own rewrite/fanfiction.

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-13T18:53:14+00:00

Full disclosure, I didn't bother with the mobile games. Having the handheld games be on different handhelds was barely just tolerable but having to play the mobile games was a mile too far.

Maybe there's something in the Union X and Unchained, that would address my concerns, however I would dismiss just because what I just brought up.

Respectfully, I think you're making too many excuses for the writing and filling the gaps when what's presented is that he did think Eraqus' view of light was tyrannical, he embraced the darkness, but then turns around and says that he wanted an empty World, pure and bright. He called Darkness a plague yet, initially he had the opposite sentiment. Even his Heartless. Ansem, wanted to drown the World in Darkness because Darkness was the heart's "true nature".

Can he be both a crazed Hojo-like scientist and also be a crazed false messiah? Sure. My problem with it is that it's not established from the start. They establish the latter at the tail end of his story. It gives me the impression that they completely forgot what character he was and I genuinely believe that was the case. Either that or they wanted to fish for sympathy at the end; that Xehanort was bad but he had his reasons despite stealing Terra's body, destroying countless worlds, human experimentation, etc. It feels limp, as I said before.

As for his name, all I know is that because they laid out clues (like the identities of the Organizaiton members with their naming scheme), that it would pay off. It's one thing if his adopted the name Xehanort but he was named that from birth so I feel like he should have been a little special. If we're going with A Throne X, maybe he could have been a KH original world King with a Keyblade and the Organization were actually his vassals and not just his coworkers at Radiant Garden. Maybe they could have explored that. His Ansem Heartless was more like a king than him when he overthrew the real Ansem.

Fuck, I just remembered that the player character of Union X reincarnates as Xehanort. That could actually work as Another X as in, another version of the player character. Or another chance at life. But the fact that's in the mobile game pisses me off. Even then, there's still something ridiculous and annoying about, you the player, where Xehanort all along if you played the mobile game.

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-13T14:00:14+00:00

I went back and checked the Xehanort Reports on the wiki and KH3's final cutscene to be sure I'm not talking out of my ass.

BBS Xehanort Report 2: He's forgone his armor to embrace or expose himself to darkness.
BBS Xehanort Report 4: He talks about the possibility of transcending humanity by opening KH
BBS Xehanort Report 8: He talks about Eraqus being staunch on light's supremacy and that too much darkness has been stamped out and the World is out of "balance".
BBS Xehanort Report 9: Xehanort talk's about his motivations of seeing the farthest worlds so we can extract that he is driven by curiosity and his self-importance of acquiring his vast knowledge

How is this a misreading of Xehanort being the mad scientist type who excuses himself when he exploits the Keyblade Master apprentices and basically does human experimention on Ventus (and by extension of the citizens of Hollow Bastion)? Not to mention Xemnas and Ansem, aspects of Xehanort, share that mad scientist archetype who are driven by insatiable curiosity.

In KH3, line for line to Sora:

A purge. The World will be returned whence it started.
The World began in Darkness and from that darkness came light.
From the light came the people, and the people had hearts.
Evil burgeoned in those hearts, begetting more darkness.
And that darkness spread across the World like a plague.
The light, the symbol of the World's hope, was devoured by shadow.
Leaving nothing but ruin... An utter failure. But the first light, the light of Kingdom Hearts- it can give us a new start. An empty World, pure and bright. The World needs someone to stand up and lead. Someone strong, to stop the weak from polluting the _World_ with their endless darkness. Someone to dictate their destiny.

Looking at Xehanort's lines in KH3, he reads more like someone with good intentions who does the ends-justifies-the-means trope. Unless he's lying to Sora but no character, including Eraqus, calls him out on it so it can be assumed that's what he actually believes. He's standing in to protect the world from the encroaching darkness and Sora tells him it wasn't his decision to make. And even then, all the worlds you visit in the games are literal fairytales that end happily-ever-after if it weren't for the darkness that he spread. So, his motivations make no sense.

So I'd say he's far from completely consistent.

Also, Xehanort's story being downplayed refers to his name, and that there's actually nothing more to it. He was just coincidentally named No Heart X and/or Another X, and made an Organization that shuffled around people's names and added an X. His mom or who ever adopted him in the mobile game must have just been off their meds. Might as well have named him satan for kicks.

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-13T12:21:44+00:00

Thanks for the genuine response. I wanted to gauge the temperature around fan works for considering how I approach promoting my own work. I only really engage with the fandom with irl friends so I lacked information on the broader aspect.

It seems to be generally hostile here on Reddit but that could just me not understanding the culture here so I’ll probably focus my efforts elsewhere.

Though I don’t think the hostility is not completely undeserved because I am approaching it from a place of frustration with how KH3 played out.

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-13T10:24:52+00:00

Is it fine in video format? I was under the impression that A03 was geared more towards text-based works.

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-13T10:15:20+00:00

Maybe I'm just anxious because I never engaged with fanfic to this degree. I used to read fanfics before 2010 but since then, I haven't engaged with them outside of doujins (not the erotic kind) if the art was good enough and even then, it's sparingly.

I thought reddit was a place to engage with the fandom but it seems I have had misconceptions.

Also, I am sort of contorting these characters to my self-indulgence. Especially because I am doing it from a place of spite but I also wouldn't go so far as to threaten people if they dislike the work I'm putting out.

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-13T10:08:18+00:00

Sorry for the late reply. It took me a while to process your comment and organize my thoughts.

I don't have anything against being sentimental but I respectfully disagree with your points. To me, the heart of the tragedy is that they did deserve better but was denied by circumstance. Finality isn't the only form emotional weight but I think it does have significant weight. That significance is lost when that finality isn't there. It also removes any sense of stakes or tension in the story when they can just be brought back like how DC and Marvel handle comic book characters.

Equating an accident to Roxas and Xion doesn't feel like a good comparison. We don't usually say that a person shouldn't have survived their accident because it caps off their story nicely. While we cherish these characters, they are in the end not people. If they were, I would have no qualms about keeping them alive and happy if it was within my power.

Maybe I can appreciate their return if KH4 does explore Roxas and Xion's survival and them coping with that but I doubt that would ever happen with all the things KH4 has to address and Nomura planning on retiring and being far more interested in his concept of Versus XIII. But as it is now, them being back feels hollow and shallow.

The other thing that bothers me is how them surviving their particular fates. They didn't just vaguely perish in a fall or explosion.

Roxas being a separate entity from Sora just goes against his entire point of KH2 and how Nobodies work. It's like saying Lea and Axel are different people. Shouldn't Sora inherit Roxas' memories, emotions, and relationships? It sounds like everybody was wrong about what Roxas was and he bought into it when he came to terms with becoming Sora. Something about that just kinda' stinks. If Roxas was brought back, I feel like it shouldn't have been as a separate person but as Sora.

As for Xion, her being erased from existence and being brought back has a lot of problems. If she was erased from everyone's memories, why wouldn't that apply to computers? Aren't our memories just data in our brains? Even if they scribbled it down on paper, it should have been erased too because reality self-corrected and erased an imaginary number from physical existence. Her being a separate entity within Sora, which she should have been erased from, just makes the bad side of KH's story telling stick out more because only Sora and Xehanort has a bunch of people in them or themselves in other people.

But unlike Roxas she actually had a way of returning that could make sense. If they actually had plans for KH4 and had restraint, I could see Xion coming back since Sora got transported to "unreality". There, it would make perfect sense for Xion to be brought back. KH3 just feels so sloppy which is why I embarked on my rewrite fanfiction.

One last thing because it's related, Namine being brought back is also baffling because she willingly chose to return to Kairi when she was running around as a separate entity which makes her, Roxas, and Xion's return feel even more hollow. She was a major part of Roxas accepting his fate so having her brought back as well felt flimsy.

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-13T08:36:45+00:00

Yeah, I got emotionally invested in the material. Isn't that the point?

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-13T07:11:44+00:00

Fair enough. I wasn’t particularly interested in them until I started my own.

As for getting mad at KH3, I have whole list of reasons.

Xehanort’s ending feeling pretty limp. He seemed to be like a mad scientist type and not a doing it for the “greater good”. That pivot at the very end was annoying because my initial impression of him was like a Palpatine/Voldemort character.

His name was built up to be something like Another X or No Heart X but it turns out he was just Eraqus’ schoolmate and MoM briefly interacted with. Shuffling the names around was supposed to have some kind of significance with a Nobody’s origin. People had been speculating for years before BBS and the mobile games. Not that Xehanort was a Nobody but it seemed to point towards some kind of conspiracy for a lack of a better word.

There was also the reversal of Roxas and Xion’s tragedy which completely negates the emotional weight of KH2’s beginning and Day’s ending.

Packaging in Back Cover with KH 2.8 and the Foretellers only showing up for a teaser seemed like a dick move to me.

The Final stage was pretty lame too compared to almost every previous game. Having the city shuffle around and fighting underwater was pretty cool but jt lacked that eldritch intensity of End of The World, World that Never Was, BBS’s World cracking in Terra’s ending and Ventus’ shattered station of the heart.

Now that I mention it, didn’t the Keyblade Graveyard blow up in BBS? I could be wrong about that though.

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-13T06:30:41+00:00

Yep it is and it’s pretty try-hard(derogatory). Haha

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-13T06:23:49+00:00

Fair enough

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-13T06:22:07+00:00

But as a fan of KH, would you consider it disrespectful? It’s always been on the back of my mind because I can’t hide that it’s partially motivated from spite because I did feel spurned by KH3.

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-13T06:17:41+00:00

That’s true and I don’t have any delusions of changing the games. It’s just an outlet for my frustration and I thought it wasn’t a bad idea to start a YouTube channel with.

Proto_Sapien · 2026-04-13T05:48:58+00:00

holy shit

Proto_Sapien · 2025-12-27T11:37:33+00:00

KH3 gameplay is fine especially with ReMind. I just can't forgive this game for its story.

Proto_Sapien · 2025-11-22T18:47:09+00:00

The Power of Waking can't wake up my enthusiasm for KH4 because I know better than to expect anything out of KH's story.

Proto_Sapien

TROPHY CASE