(Walls of text incoming! Please read if you're interested, sorry about the length.)
So after watching a playthrough of the Lingering Will battle, and just kind of over time as I played the boss myself, I've kind of noticed something interesting about a lot of the moves and aesthetics that it possesses when fighting Sora and co.
Now in it's first chronological appearance, the Lingering Will only had access to whatever commands the player equipped to Terra prior to the final battle. Now whether this means it canonically only had those abilities during that fight or not, I'm skeptical, since I'm of the impression that there's two approaches to how story plays out in games. There's the way the player progresses things, at their own pace, using their own moves, strategies, and styles in battles, and skipping or playing certain events, and then there's the way that it would progress as if it were a movie, certain events are experienced in a way that makes sense, the character is played like the character, using moves and strategies that would fit with themselves, and not to mention just doing things in a flashy manner that makes the battles just a bit more epic. I tend to prefer the second one whenever I do my own playthroughs, since I believe in video games being not only an entertaining interactive experience, but also an interactive cinematic experience. So in most cases I would usually think "okay, if this were a movie like Advent Children or something, how would Sora finish off this boss?" or "Okay, Terra's about to fight Eraqus while under the influence of Darkness. Better equip all Darkness-based commands I have!" or "Ventus vs Vanitas, Light vs Dark. Obviously I should give Ven whatever Light-based commands I have to make the battle more epic". You get the idea.
Now of course there are limitations to this kind of approach to gaming, since it is after all a game. There will be multiple scenarios where say in Birth by Sleep, it would make sense for Terra to use different command setups in his final 3 battles. It'd make sense if he came into the battle against both Vanitas and Xehanort with a mostly "Terra-themed" deck filled with Earth commands and heavy hitting abilities. But then when he's just against Xehanort it would make more sense for him to have more Darkness abilities equipped, since Xehanort was stirring the dark fires within him and he let all of that out at the beginning of the fight. So it would make sense to have most if not all of your Darkness commands at your disposal. Now right away the problem should be obvious, once you go into the first boss battle sequence, you CAN'T change your commands, you're stuck with whatever setup you have coming in. You wouldn't think it was that much of a biggie, but for those who were probably hoping to pull off some ridiculously epic stunts like you could in KH2, where you had access to EVERYTHING you unlocked, this really limits how you can achieve that more "cinematic" style. The only way around this would be if you either had hacks, which I really don't prefer anyway, or if you were an editing wizard like Everglow and just had multiple footage of different playthroughs of the same bosses with different setups, making it at least look like you have access to all your powers. But the point here is, if it weren't for the game's limitations on what you can bring into battle, you'd have a lot more freedom to more accurately depict how certain characters like Terra would fight some of these fights if it was actually them fighting and not just you using them.
But then when Terra is possessed by Xehanort and the only thing stopping him is Terra's reanimated armor, it would make much more sense if its commands matched some of the abilities it later displays against Sora. But it moves so much differently than it does in Birth by Sleep, right? Well actually, no, it doesn't, not entirely anyway. After paying enough attention I was able to notice a few animations that the Lingering Will displays as a boss that match up what Terra and the Lingering Will can do in BbS. So we can just start by analyzing the specific moves in question.
So the obvious ones to notice would first be the Ultima Canon Shotlock and the Keyblade-Glider Transformation. Terra clearly had the ability to do both prior to his final fight, and while the Will shows the ability to use magic while upon the glider in a way that Terra couldn't in BbS, I'd like to thank that again to the limitations of the game, in that it didn't want to overpower you by having access to magic while using your glider, especially when there were only a few choice scenarios where you would even use it. So if it weren't for these limitations, and if Terra actually could just use it whenever he wanted during battle, I'm certain he would have had the capacity to mix some magic in there while using it as an offensive ability. And in addition to the Ultima Canon shotlock, I feel like the Will may also be using another kind of shotlock whenever it summons those little drones of light that strike you with rapid laser blasts at least twice, something like Meteor Shower which involves a bunch of light-projectiles being launched in at least two phases (the initial shots phase, then the finisher if you maxed the lock all the way).
But then there's more nuanced things that you would have to have a keen eye to catch, considering how fast the Will moves around as a boss. One thing I noticed was that when he uses his short 3-hit combo (the one that pushes Sora away on the third hit), it kind of reminded me of the final hits of Terra's Dark Impulse command style's combo. Both involve enveloping the user's hand in some kind of expanded apparatus, in Terra's case a giant ghostly aura hand of Darkness and in the Lingering Will's case the Keyblade transformed into some kind of cog-like gauntlet mechanism with Light around it, and they both end in a similar fashion, with a few swift hits left and right finished up by a powerful thrust forward. The clear difference between the two though is in how they appear and are used, with Terra using the powers of Darkness to do all this with a giant freaking fist of evil while the Lingering Will does all of this with a Keyblade transformation and no signs of Darkness or giant scary hands whatsoever.
Another thing I noticed was that one of the combos of Lingering Will's final limit attack (the one with all of the strikes that you have to be on your toes to block and avoid in time) involves a similar slashing motion to the beginning combo strikes of Dark Impulse as well, only much more sped up and again, no Darkness aura involved. It may also contain some traces of Terra's Ars Solum attack as well, again only sped up. Now there's clearly a lot more varied strikes in this final attack, but it's still worth noting that the strikes are very similar, despite all of the transformations thrown in there.
Speaking of Keyblade transformations, that's another thing I wanted to touch upon. While BbS slightly touched upon the idea with the Keyblade Gliders and Terra's Ultima Canon shotlock, I can't help but feel like they were originally planning on incorporating a lot more nuanced transformations than just that. After all, Terra and Aqua were both master-level Keyblade wielders and with Lingering Will and later on Sora, you can see that those kind of abilities must be accessible once you reach that level. And the Lingering Will's use of it really seemed to hint that BbS would show some of that off. So why didn't we get as many transformations as we may had been expecting? Well again, the game's limitations, with all of the things they managed to fit into the PSP game, throwing in a bunch of flashy physics-defying transformation attacks probably would have taken a toll on the system's capabilities (not to mention awesome armor capes...). So it would make sense if they scaled that down a significant amount just to highlight the important necessary bits like the Gliders and Terra's shotlock. But if the game had no or fewer limitations, I would imagine that at the very least each of the characters would have at least displayed one style of transformation that would have fit their characters rather well. Terra already has the Ultima Canon, but I could easily see Aqua using her Keyblade like a bow and arrow like how she uses it in Keyblade Glider mode, similar to how the Lingering Will uses it against you. And that whip-like transformation that it also uses always struck me as something that would fit well with Ventus, being a mostly speed and distance oriented attack that creates a field of effect, something that a lot of Ven's later moves seem to capitalize on. So in my fan-mind, it would have been "canon" if the three of them each had their own signature transformation style if they had access to it.
But then that begs the question, if they "had" it, then why does Lingering Will have it too? Well I always thought that if Aqua and Ven did have access to transformations, the Lingering Will probably based some of his skills off of its memories and connection to them, so it'd be picking up some tricks from them to keep its battle style varied and balanced. Most of its moves are from Terra, but it would also make sense that it would honor Ven and Aqua by pulling a few cards from their decks, so to speak. Also a small tidbit, one of it's moves seems to resemble the Rising Sun reaction command that Sora can use against the Aromored Knight Heartless. While Terra never displayed this ability in-game, I do recall seeing a very early screenshot of Terra in mid-air preparing what looked like was going to be this move (it was a shot of him in front of the Dwarves' Cottage, so very early in development), so it would make sense if this was part of his "headcanon" based set of moves at his disposal that you don't get to end up seeing in the actual gameplay.
But there is still one more thing I wanted to address and that was probably the most nuanced thing of all, the aura and light effects that surround most of the Lingering Will's attacks. In the battle against the Will, it has so many attacks that use gears or bars of light, runes of light that limit the player's actions, symbols that show up, light effects, warping capabilities, fast almost gliding-like movement, etc. Clearly in BbS we don't have access to nearly this many aesthetics or mobility, at least not with Terra. So how could the Lingering Will, all that remains of Terra's free will and power, suddenly have access to all of this power? Well my question may have sort of been answered when BbS Final Mix first came out, with one of several new bosses, The Armor of the Master (or Armor of Eraqus if you want to be less mysterious or tact I guess...). While sharing a few of Eraqus' moves he displays in his battle with Terra, this armor also seems to display a bunch of abilities that it's former wearer was merciful enough to not use against his pupils. It could summon runes and bars and constructs of Light (similar to the Lingering Will), showed more advanced versions of it's wearer's displayed abilities (again similar to the Will), and had a great amount of speed and strength coupled with it's overwhelming use of light magic (you get the idea). But what it also had was the ability to augment the powers and attributes of the opponent it was up against, or in this case Terra, Aqua, and Ven. Now while I touched upon how Lingering Will may have been adopting some skills Aqua and Ven may have had, in some form of tribute, the Armor of the Master seems to be a lot more explicit with this modification, as it is literally copying the moves and abilities of it's former pupils' commands and command styles, using them to a far more advanced and masterful degree than any of them had ever displayed (I mean they were pretty fresh out of graduation). Not only that, but it stands to reason that since Eraqus was their teacher, he may have had mastery over these styles of attacking in the first place, and each pupil sort of adapted their own spin on the three disciplines (power, speed, and magic), and the Armor shows off that mastery and adaptability to jump between those different phases of attack, it just more likely uses the player as a catalyst to reawaken those skills.
So why did I spend a whole paragraph talking about another animated suit of armor instead of the one I'm supposed to be focusing on? Because of one important bit of information we learned from Xehanort at the end of BbS, that Eraqus' heart had found it's way inside of Terra's. Now this mainly seems to hint that it has been what has given Terra enough strength of will to try and resist Xehanort's influence within his own body, but it may also be the key to figuring out a bit more about the Lingering Will's existence. Terra's resistance against Xehanort was fought on two separate sides, first on the outside by the Lingering Will, and the other on the inside from Terra himself (or his heart and mind anyway). Now if Eraqus' influence was what allowed Terra to fight off Xehanort from the inside long enough for Aqua to stand a chance against him and to keep Xehanort from erasing him from their shared body altogether, wouldn't it also stand to reason that a small part of him may have also had a hand in the Lingering Will's creation? The most important thing to consider about the Lingering Will is that it is not simply a suit of armor possessed by Terra's spirit, it's more of a partial amount of Terra's thoughts and feelings that stayed behind or transferred over as soon as Terra-Xehanort discarded the armor and Keyblade. So in a sense it is sort of possessed by Terra's "ghost", in the sense that it is much less of what Terra used to be, as it displays no emotion or any means of expression towards anyone other than Xehanort or those Terra had ties with, like Aqua, Ven, and Riku, and even barely Sora.
All it is is based on what strong connections and feelings it had prior to it's creation, otherwise it's only a ghost of it's former self. So if just a partial amount of what remained of Terra found it's way into his armor, doesn't it also stand to reason that an even lesser amount of Eraqus' influence may have found it's way into the armor as well? It may have been what gave the Will the power to outmatch Terra-Xehanort and what gave it the huge power increase that boosted all of it's moves and techniques in it's battle against Sora 11 years later. This would explain all of the runes, the bars, beams, and gears of light (though the gears could also be part of Terra's aesthetic, as they can be seen when he summons his Keyblade), the mastery over speed, magic, and power, the improved maneuverability, the limitation of enemies movements, the effortless adaptation of Aqua and Ven's fighting styles (to an extent), and the even more effortless mastery over Keyblade transformations that only a true Keyblade Master could possess. While Eraqus' influence managed to give Terra's heart and mind the willpower needed to resist Xehanort's influence from within Terra-Xehanort's body, Eraqus' power might have been all that came with Terra's thoughts, feelings, and will when they remained behind in his discarded armor. So that may be why Terra-Xehanort was defeated by Lingering Will the first time around, along with not getting used to his new body yet, Xehanort wasn't ready to be countered against by the power of two Keyblade Masters in one form, and Sora would later on get to witness the full extent of this power when the Will was convinced that he was Xehanort, returned. It should be noted however that while Xehanort is clearly asserting his personality and will upon Terra's form, Eraqus only seems to be giving Terra inner strength and determination, support, leaving Terra to retain his own sense of self, only stronger. Just like what a father would do.
With all of that said, I think it's safe to say that the Lingering Will is truly a remarkable entity, as it may not be as simple as Terra's will possessing his armor and Keyblade with a mastery he's never shown before. This is of course purely conjecture as I'm heavily relying on the idea that what we see from Kingdom Hearts isn't necessarily what we get, or rather, what we get isn't what's really there, the idea that how WE play the events of the characters' experience out isn't necessarily how THEY would be approaching it in a scenario where they could just show off whatever they had, no gameplay restrictions whatsoever. And of course I'm heavily speculating the nature and degree Eraqus' influence has over Terra and how some things that might not matter too much, like how differently a boss plays from a playable character, might have some kind of contextual explanation to them. Nuances like this may or may not have simple or complex answers to them, if any at all. I mean Xemnas plays extremely differently as a playable character in Days as opposed to how he works as a boss in KH1 Final Mix, KH2, and DDD, yet there are no special circumstances with how he works in any of those games (I mean yeah there's that whole thing about Terra's influence maybe having something to do with his efforts to find Aqua and Ven, but I don't think it reaches as far as how he fights like the Lingering Will's nature does). Sometimes it can be as simple as "he's just not wasting his full power on common field-enemies" or "he was going all-out on Sora because his plans depended on it, and even in KH1 and DDD he was still holding back", you know, DBZ style explanations. And if you want to get meta about it, it can be as simple as they just didn't want to make you as OP as a final boss when playing in a mission-style scenario.
The point is there are thousands of ways to analyse different aspects of the series, even when it comes to how a character and boss works. I'm sure some of you probably noticed or thought about a few of these things when it came to the Lingering Will, but I bet that not too many of you played around with it to the extent that I have. I mostly try to play around with the lore of the series in my head, even though there's a good chance none of it ever ends up being true or even addressed later on. And even then it's all theory anyway, it's not like I'm saying that it's something that's actually there and it's the true way to interpret it.
And with that in mind, I'm curious to hear what you all think about this theory. Again, I'm really sorry about the length, but the way I see it, if you made it this far it means that you were truly curious and cared enough about the idea to see everything I had to say about it, and if that's the case, I really appreciate it! If you skimmed most of it or turned away altogether because of the length, I understand but I still really appreciate those of you who gave this the full chance. Still, guess I got a bit carried away with this one, but anywho, tell me what y'all think about this hypothesis and if maybe you have any of your own interpretations about the weird nature of this mysterious entity.
(Walls of text incoming! Please read if you're interested, sorry about the length.)
So after watching a playthrough of the Lingering Will battle, and just kind of over time as I played the boss myself, I've kind of noticed something interesting about a lot of the moves and aesthetics that it possesses when fighting Sora and co.
Now in it's first chronological appearance, the Lingering Will only had access to whatever commands the player equipped to Terra prior to the final battle. Now whether this means it canonically only had those abilities during that fight or not, I'm skeptical, since I'm of the impression that there's two approaches to how story plays out in games. There's the way the player progresses things, at their own pace, using their own moves, strategies, and styles in battles, and skipping or playing certain events, and then there's the way that it would progress as if it were a movie, certain events are experienced in a way that makes sense, the character is played like the character, using moves and strategies that would fit with themselves, and not to mention just doing things in a flashy manner that makes the battles just a bit more epic. I tend to prefer the second one whenever I do my own playthroughs, since I believe in video games being not only an entertaining interactive experience, but also an interactive cinematic experience. So in most cases I would usually think "okay, if this were a movie like Advent Children or something, how would Sora finish off this boss?" or "Okay, Terra's about to fight Eraqus while under the influence of Darkness. Better equip all Darkness-based commands I have!" or "Ventus vs Vanitas, Light vs Dark. Obviously I should give Ven whatever Light-based commands I have to make the battle more epic". You get the idea.
Now of course there are limitations to this kind of approach to gaming, since it is after all a game. There will be multiple scenarios where say in Birth by Sleep, it would make sense for Terra to use different command setups in his final 3 battles. It'd make sense if he came into the battle against both Vanitas and Xehanort with a mostly "Terra-themed" deck filled with Earth commands and heavy hitting abilities. But then when he's just against Xehanort it would make more sense for him to have more Darkness abilities equipped, since Xehanort was stirring the dark fires within him and he let all of that out at the beginning of the fight. So it would make sense to have most if not all of your Darkness commands at your disposal. Now right away the problem should be obvious, once you go into the first boss battle sequence, you CAN'T change your commands, you're stuck with whatever setup you have coming in. You wouldn't think it was that much of a biggie, but for those who were probably hoping to pull off some ridiculously epic stunts like you could in KH2, where you had access to EVERYTHING you unlocked, this really limits how you can achieve that more "cinematic" style. The only way around this would be if you either had hacks, which I really don't prefer anyway, or if you were an editing wizard like Everglow and just had multiple footage of different playthroughs of the same bosses with different setups, making it at least look like you have access to all your powers. But the point here is, if it weren't for the game's limitations on what you can bring into battle, you'd have a lot more freedom to more accurately depict how certain characters like Terra would fight some of these fights if it was actually them fighting and not just you using them.
But then when Terra is possessed by Xehanort and the only thing stopping him is Terra's reanimated armor, it would make much more sense if its commands matched some of the abilities it later displays against Sora. But it moves so much differently than it does in Birth by Sleep, right? Well actually, no, it doesn't, not entirely anyway. After paying enough attention I was able to notice a few animations that the Lingering Will displays as a boss that match up what Terra and the Lingering Will can do in BbS. So we can just start by analyzing the specific moves in question.
So the obvious ones to notice would first be the Ultima Canon Shotlock and the Keyblade-Glider Transformation. Terra clearly had the ability to do both prior to his final fight, and while the Will shows the ability to use magic while upon the glider in a way that Terra couldn't in BbS, I'd like to thank that again to the limitations of the game, in that it didn't want to overpower you by having access to magic while using your glider, especially when there were only a few choice scenarios where you would even use it. So if it weren't for these limitations, and if Terra actually could just use it whenever he wanted during battle, I'm certain he would have had the capacity to mix some magic in there while using it as an offensive ability. And in addition to the Ultima Canon shotlock, I feel like the Will may also be using another kind of shotlock whenever it summons those little drones of light that strike you with rapid laser blasts at least twice, something like Meteor Shower which involves a bunch of light-projectiles being launched in at least two phases (the initial shots phase, then the finisher if you maxed the lock all the way).
But then there's more nuanced things that you would have to have a keen eye to catch, considering how fast the Will moves around as a boss. One thing I noticed was that when he uses his short 3-hit combo (the one that pushes Sora away on the third hit), it kind of reminded me of the final hits of Terra's Dark Impulse command style's combo. Both involve enveloping the user's hand in some kind of expanded apparatus, in Terra's case a giant ghostly aura hand of Darkness and in the Lingering Will's case the Keyblade transformed into some kind of cog-like gauntlet mechanism with Light around it, and they both end in a similar fashion, with a few swift hits left and right finished up by a powerful thrust forward. The clear difference between the two though is in how they appear and are used, with Terra using the powers of Darkness to do all this with a giant freaking fist of evil while the Lingering Will does all of this with a Keyblade transformation and no signs of Darkness or giant scary hands whatsoever.
Another thing I noticed was that one of the combos of Lingering Will's final limit attack (the one with all of the strikes that you have to be on your toes to block and avoid in time) involves a similar slashing motion to the beginning combo strikes of Dark Impulse as well, only much more sped up and again, no Darkness aura involved. It may also contain some traces of Terra's Ars Solum attack as well, again only sped up. Now there's clearly a lot more varied strikes in this final attack, but it's still worth noting that the strikes are very similar, despite all of the transformations thrown in there.
Speaking of Keyblade transformations, that's another thing I wanted to touch upon. While BbS slightly touched upon the idea with the Keyblade Gliders and Terra's Ultima Canon shotlock, I can't help but feel like they were originally planning on incorporating a lot more nuanced transformations than just that. After all, Terra and Aqua were both master-level Keyblade wielders and with Lingering Will and later on Sora, you can see that those kind of abilities must be accessible once you reach that level. And the Lingering Will's use of it really seemed to hint that BbS would show some of that off. So why didn't we get as many transformations as we may had been expecting? Well again, the game's limitations, with all of the things they managed to fit into the PSP game, throwing in a bunch of flashy physics-defying transformation attacks probably would have taken a toll on the system's capabilities (not to mention awesome armor capes...). So it would make sense if they scaled that down a significant amount just to highlight the important necessary bits like the Gliders and Terra's shotlock. But if the game had no or fewer limitations, I would imagine that at the very least each of the characters would have at least displayed one style of transformation that would have fit their characters rather well. Terra already has the Ultima Canon, but I could easily see Aqua using her Keyblade like a bow and arrow like how she uses it in Keyblade Glider mode, similar to how the Lingering Will uses it against you. And that whip-like transformation that it also uses always struck me as something that would fit well with Ventus, being a mostly speed and distance oriented attack that creates a field of effect, something that a lot of Ven's later moves seem to capitalize on. So in my fan-mind, it would have been "canon" if the three of them each had their own signature transformation style if they had access to it.
But then that begs the question, if they "had" it, then why does Lingering Will have it too? Well I always thought that if Aqua and Ven did have access to transformations, the Lingering Will probably based some of his skills off of its memories and connection to them, so it'd be picking up some tricks from them to keep its battle style varied and balanced. Most of its moves are from Terra, but it would also make sense that it would honor Ven and Aqua by pulling a few cards from their decks, so to speak. Also a small tidbit, one of it's moves seems to resemble the Rising Sun reaction command that Sora can use against the Aromored Knight Heartless. While Terra never displayed this ability in-game, I do recall seeing a very early screenshot of Terra in mid-air preparing what looked like was going to be this move (it was a shot of him in front of the Dwarves' Cottage, so very early in development), so it would make sense if this was part of his "headcanon" based set of moves at his disposal that you don't get to end up seeing in the actual gameplay.
But there is still one more thing I wanted to address and that was probably the most nuanced thing of all, the aura and light effects that surround most of the Lingering Will's attacks. In the battle against the Will, it has so many attacks that use gears or bars of light, runes of light that limit the player's actions, symbols that show up, light effects, warping capabilities, fast almost gliding-like movement, etc. Clearly in BbS we don't have access to nearly this many aesthetics or mobility, at least not with Terra. So how could the Lingering Will, all that remains of Terra's free will and power, suddenly have access to all of this power? Well my question may have sort of been answered when BbS Final Mix first came out, with one of several new bosses, The Armor of the Master (or Armor of Eraqus if you want to be less mysterious or tact I guess...). While sharing a few of Eraqus' moves he displays in his battle with Terra, this armor also seems to display a bunch of abilities that it's former wearer was merciful enough to not use against his pupils. It could summon runes and bars and constructs of Light (similar to the Lingering Will), showed more advanced versions of it's wearer's displayed abilities (again similar to the Will), and had a great amount of speed and strength coupled with it's overwhelming use of light magic (you get the idea). But what it also had was the ability to augment the powers and attributes of the opponent it was up against, or in this case Terra, Aqua, and Ven. Now while I touched upon how Lingering Will may have been adopting some skills Aqua and Ven may have had, in some form of tribute, the Armor of the Master seems to be a lot more explicit with this modification, as it is literally copying the moves and abilities of it's former pupils' commands and command styles, using them to a far more advanced and masterful degree than any of them had ever displayed (I mean they were pretty fresh out of graduation). Not only that, but it stands to reason that since Eraqus was their teacher, he may have had mastery over these styles of attacking in the first place, and each pupil sort of adapted their own spin on the three disciplines (power, speed, and magic), and the Armor shows off that mastery and adaptability to jump between those different phases of attack, it just more likely uses the player as a catalyst to reawaken those skills.
So why did I spend a whole paragraph talking about another animated suit of armor instead of the one I'm supposed to be focusing on? Because of one important bit of information we learned from Xehanort at the end of BbS, that Eraqus' heart had found it's way inside of Terra's. Now this mainly seems to hint that it has been what has given Terra enough strength of will to try and resist Xehanort's influence within his own body, but it may also be the key to figuring out a bit more about the Lingering Will's existence. Terra's resistance against Xehanort was fought on two separate sides, first on the outside by the Lingering Will, and the other on the inside from Terra himself (or his heart and mind anyway). Now if Eraqus' influence was what allowed Terra to fight off Xehanort from the inside long enough for Aqua to stand a chance against him and to keep Xehanort from erasing him from their shared body altogether, wouldn't it also stand to reason that a small part of him may have also had a hand in the Lingering Will's creation? The most important thing to consider about the Lingering Will is that it is not simply a suit of armor possessed by Terra's spirit, it's more of a partial amount of Terra's thoughts and feelings that stayed behind or transferred over as soon as Terra-Xehanort discarded the armor and Keyblade. So in a sense it is sort of possessed by Terra's "ghost", in the sense that it is much less of what Terra used to be, as it displays no emotion or any means of expression towards anyone other than Xehanort or those Terra had ties with, like Aqua, Ven, and Riku, and even barely Sora.
All it is is based on what strong connections and feelings it had prior to it's creation, otherwise it's only a ghost of it's former self. So if just a partial amount of what remained of Terra found it's way into his armor, doesn't it also stand to reason that an even lesser amount of Eraqus' influence may have found it's way into the armor as well? It may have been what gave the Will the power to outmatch Terra-Xehanort and what gave it the huge power increase that boosted all of it's moves and techniques in it's battle against Sora 11 years later. This would explain all of the runes, the bars, beams, and gears of light (though the gears could also be part of Terra's aesthetic, as they can be seen when he summons his Keyblade), the mastery over speed, magic, and power, the improved maneuverability, the limitation of enemies movements, the effortless adaptation of Aqua and Ven's fighting styles (to an extent), and the even more effortless mastery over Keyblade transformations that only a true Keyblade Master could possess. While Eraqus' influence managed to give Terra's heart and mind the willpower needed to resist Xehanort's influence from within Terra-Xehanort's body, Eraqus' power might have been all that came with Terra's thoughts, feelings, and will when they remained behind in his discarded armor. So that may be why Terra-Xehanort was defeated by Lingering Will the first time around, along with not getting used to his new body yet, Xehanort wasn't ready to be countered against by the power of two Keyblade Masters in one form, and Sora would later on get to witness the full extent of this power when the Will was convinced that he was Xehanort, returned. It should be noted however that while Xehanort is clearly asserting his personality and will upon Terra's form, Eraqus only seems to be giving Terra inner strength and determination, support, leaving Terra to retain his own sense of self, only stronger. Just like what a father would do.
With all of that said, I think it's safe to say that the Lingering Will is truly a remarkable entity, as it may not be as simple as Terra's will possessing his armor and Keyblade with a mastery he's never shown before. This is of course purely conjecture as I'm heavily relying on the idea that what we see from Kingdom Hearts isn't necessarily what we get, or rather, what we get isn't what's really there, the idea that how WE play the events of the characters' experience out isn't necessarily how THEY would be approaching it in a scenario where they could just show off whatever they had, no gameplay restrictions whatsoever. And of course I'm heavily speculating the nature and degree Eraqus' influence has over Terra and how some things that might not matter too much, like how differently a boss plays from a playable character, might have some kind of contextual explanation to them. Nuances like this may or may not have simple or complex answers to them, if any at all. I mean Xemnas plays extremely differently as a playable character in Days as opposed to how he works as a boss in KH1 Final Mix, KH2, and DDD, yet there are no special circumstances with how he works in any of those games (I mean yeah there's that whole thing about Terra's influence maybe having something to do with his efforts to find Aqua and Ven, but I don't think it reaches as far as how he fights like the Lingering Will's nature does). Sometimes it can be as simple as "he's just not wasting his full power on common field-enemies" or "he was going all-out on Sora because his plans depended on it, and even in KH1 and DDD he was still holding back", you know, DBZ style explanations. And if you want to get meta about it, it can be as simple as they just didn't want to make you as OP as a final boss when playing in a mission-style scenario.
The point is there are thousands of ways to analyse different aspects of the series, even when it comes to how a character and boss works. I'm sure some of you probably noticed or thought about a few of these things when it came to the Lingering Will, but I bet that not too many of you played around with it to the extent that I have. I mostly try to play around with the lore of the series in my head, even though there's a good chance none of it ever ends up being true or even addressed later on. And even then it's all theory anyway, it's not like I'm saying that it's something that's actually there and it's the true way to interpret it.
And with that in mind, I'm curious to hear what you all think about this theory. Again, I'm really sorry about the length, but the way I see it, if you made it this far it means that you were truly curious and cared enough about the idea to see everything I had to say about it, and if that's the case, I really appreciate it! If you skimmed most of it or turned away altogether because of the length, I understand but I still really appreciate those of you who gave this the full chance. Still, guess I got a bit carried away with this one, but anywho, tell me what y'all think about this hypothesis and if maybe you have any of your own interpretations about the weird nature of this mysterious entity.
Edited by Hero of Light XIV