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G-SANtos

KHUX The identities of the Foretellers, Luxu, and the Master of Masters. And alchemy

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I've been thinking about who the Foretellers are for some time. As has been noted before, they are very similar to the heroes of the present, including having
to them, to the point there's even a theory the present-day heroes are reincarnations of them.

Personally, I don't believe the rebirth theory because it contradicts the premise that the heart doesn't exist until after birth. However, my theory has something in common with it: Their true names are Riku, Terra, Aqua, Sora/Ventus, and Kairi.

Yes, I said Sora is a possibility instead of Ven. I'll explain.

 

First of all, who are the Foretellers? They are holograms from the Book of Prophecies that became their own people. As we know, everything can have a heart. And Nomura seems to want to show an example from every type of artificial being. There are very few categories of artificial being that we haven't seen any specimen having a heart. The ones I can think of are right now are:

-Castle Oblivion memory projections (unless you count Xion as similar enough to fill it)

-Lingering Will (although I think he'll develop a heart in KHIII)

-Book of Prophecies projections

 

The last one I'm proposing to be what the Foretellers are. Alternatively, fitting with the possibility of the Master representing a chimera, they could be somehow hybrids from multiple holograms. They could also be a different type of artificial being, like, say, homunculus, but I'm sure the Master somehow created them based on the heroes of present.

 

I know a few people don't like the idea of them being just another set of clones. I myself once believed the similarities were red herrings to build an expectation that they look similar to the present heroes, to surprise people revealing that their faces are different, building expectation that Luxu and the Master have new faces, to then surprise people by revealing the Master looks like someone, like Sora (pride = lion = Sora's early design).

Then came the official renders, and people noticed their facial structures are similar to the modern heroes. At this point, people expecting them to have completely new faces seem to be denial.

 

Some feel it wouldn't be surprising for them to have the same faces. And that's the point, the surprise is not their faces. See, everytime something very obvious was teased in KH, and thus was predictable, there's also a part of it that is not so obvious. Let's recap:

-DiZ is Ansem. That was obvious from the very first KHII trailer when Riku calls him Ansem. Surprise! "Ansem" is not Ansem.

 

-Terra and "Xehanort" are the same person. That became obvious the moment people noticed they have the same face. And I saw this pointed out, and with trailers having Master Xehanort telling Terra to follow him to the darkness, I theorixed the ending would be "Terra becomes evil, kills Xehanort, loses all memory except for the name Xehanort" and KHIII would be about helping Terra remember who he is. But then, surprise! Xehanort stole Terra's body.

 

-Time travel will be involved. That became obvious as soon as the No Name was obtained. I saw a forum once with people in denial saying time travel couldn't be involved because "Why not just go back in time and prevent Xehanort from ever carrying his plans?", and I knew the answer was "Because Roxas, Naminé, and Xion would then never exist, and we're supposed to save them, not erase them forever", but I didn't answer either because I didn't have an account and I didn't want to create one just for that or because the post was too old, I don't remember which. Then came KH3D and, surprise! The time travel rules. Seriously, who would expect that?

 

So, the surprise is not the Foretellers' faces, but rather something else. But what? Some think they have Xehanort's yellow eyes are among his 13. While I think the Foretellers being possessed by Xehanort in KHIII is possible, and having four of them be among would give a new meaning to this Destiny Islands drawing, I don't think that's the surprise. Not just because it would be too predictable, but also because Xehanort couldn't possibly have possessed them as of Back Cover, although nothing prevents them from having naturally yellow eyes like Xehanort himself.

 

I think the surprise might be... their foreheads. They might have some symbol in their foreheads that marks them as creations of the Master of Masters, or an X-scar. Personally, I'm sure Invi has an X-scar on her neck. Think about it, everyone is so focused on their faces, and some on their eyes. Who would think their foreheads could have something meaningful?

It's not impossible. Chirithy's Dream Eater is hidden by his cape, and did anyone see that coming?

 

As for why Gula could be Sora instead fo Ventus. First, there's the fact the renders give him the same pose as KHIII Sora. Second, Gula's Keyblade could allude to Sora. The Foretellers' Keyblades all seem to allude to the characters they look like.

-Aced. The most obvious. It looks it's made of stone, and is similar to the Darkgnaw.

-Invi. Looks like a thorn. While it could also be a reference to the garden of Eden, what's important here is that Aqua's Keyblade is the Rainfell, and rain makes plants grow.

-Ira. The Way to the Dawn looks like a bunch of darkness with a bit of light. Ira's Keyblade is a bunch of light with a bit of darkness (the black line). Heck, the teeth even looks like a light beam.

-Ava. This one is the most strange. Destiny's Embrace looks like the Destiny Islands, while Ava's Keyblade looks like... colored water? Maybe it refers to corals? Or light?

-Gula. His Keyblade looks like thunder, and thunders come from the sky (Sora).

 

Gula's Keyblade seems to be connecting to Sora rather than Ven. Although Ven also has the alchemical symbol of tin in his room, and tin is associated with the planet Jupiter, which is associated with a god of thunder.

 

So, Gula could be based on Sora instead of Ventus, specially if Ventus is actually from the Keyblade War era. And his animal being a leopard instead of a boar could be a reference to Sora's early werelion designs, as both lions and leopards are felines. Also, the word "leopard" is partially derived from "leo" (lion).

 

Also, the most final KH2.8 trailer shows a scene where Gula and Ava are holding hands, which apparently made some ship them or something, but it made me think about how both are the youngest Foretellers, which makes me wonder if they're trying to mimic the Roxas-Xion dynamic which was conceived as "Roxas and a girl his age" (which might explain why the Riku-based character is older), which I don't think they would do here without them being some version of Sora and Kairi.

Which, now that I think about it, could make the Ira-Aced feud some reference to Riku's constant fighting with Ansem, which could explain why Aced's VA sounds Terra-Xehanort rather than Terra. And maybe provides an alternate explanation meta-explanation for Ira's age: the creators didn't want to replicate that dynamic with such an age gap.

 

However, Gula's Keyblade's keychain kind of looks like a V, in a way not unlike how the Void Gear's resembles an S, but techincally, V could also stand for Vanitas who looks like Sora. Man, there are so many variables here that analyzing Gula is a bit confusing, but honestly, the fact Ventus has a role in KHχ makes me think Gula is not a Ventus hologram, and I also think Ven already has some connection with the Player.

 

Moving on, there's Luxu. Some people pointed out that his voice is similar to young Eraqus's, to the point there's also a theory they are the same person. While I don't believe Eraqus is literally Luxu, I checked the trailers and noticed some similarity between their voices in both English and Japanese. So, I think he looks like Eraqus. He could be another homunculus, based on Eraqus, or he could be an actual human who coincidentally looks like Eraqus the same way Terra and Xehanort do (although that opens the possibility of everyone being a coincidence, but I think it would be too much if it was everyone). Think about it, Luxu's name cointains the word "lux" (light), so it makes perfect sense for him to look like a light-connected character. Actually, going by the hybrid design theory, he could look like Eraqus with Xehanort's hair color.

 

Also, since his name has an "X", his real name might be Ulu. Interestingly, ulu is Hawaiian for "to be possessed by a god", which has ominous implications when you remember of Xehanortification.

At any rate, I think Luxu is somehow different from the Foretellers, either because he's a human, or because he's a different type of artificial being as them.

 

 

Now, the Master of Masters. First of all, who is he? He wrote the Book of Prophecies, created Chirithy, possibly the Keyblade, and according to this theory also the Foretellers. He has parallels with Ansem the Wise, a scientist, and there's a theory that his symbol is a chimera. First of all let's think, what is a chimera? While everyone generally thinks of the mythological creature, there's also another, more modern meaning: An organism with multiple sets of DNA. And I also saw a documentary many years ago using "chimera" as "genetically engineered hybrid animal" (specifically, it was talking about chimera mice). That's why I suggested the Foretellers could have hybrid designs and be based on more than one person at once.

And I also called the Foretellers "homunculus" when I proposed a word to describe them. The reason is simple, a homunculus is an artificial human and is a concept closely to alchemy. This guy got the right idea: alchemy is related to KHX. However, he failed to take his thinking one step and come to the conclusion I did: The Master of Masters is an alchemist.

 

Think about it, it makes perfect sense, Ansem the Wise is a scientist, while alchemy is a proto-science, which later evolved into chemistry. There's a lot of chemistry imagery going on with many test tubes appearing in the Back Cover trailers, and Chirithy being born inside one.

So let's talk about alchemy for a bit. A common alchemy symbol is a lion eating the sun (thanks GameFreak for Solgaleo in SM. I wouldn't be able to create this theory if I hadn't seen many theory videos about Pokémon Sun and Moon having alchemy themes).

 

A common aim, and also the most sought-after goal, of alchemy was to complete the magnum opus, the process of creating the philosopher's stone. The philosopher's stone was said to be able to turn base metals into gold or silver and was also called the elixir of life, and useful for rejuvenation and achieving immortality.

 

The stone also had many names such as Adam, Aer, Animal, Alkahest, Aqua volans per aeram, Brutorum cor, Cinis cineris, Dominium philosophorum, Filius ignis, Granum frumenti, lapis occultus, Ovum philosophorum, in water at the box, Unicornis est Deus, Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem, Radices arboris solares, Sal metallorum, Salvator terrenus, etc.

Apparently there's a scholar of Chinese history who found over a 1000 names for the Elixir of Life, but I don't know much about this. But you get the point, it has tons of names and grants immortality.

 

Now remember what was Xehanort's plan with Terra in BBS? He was getting too old, and needed a younger body to have more time to complete his plans. As we can see, you can extend your life if you use a Keyblade to transfer to transfer your heart to a new body when you're about to die. Keep doing this everytime you get old, and you can basically live forever. Which means you would be immortal. See where I'm going? That's right, the Keyblade is a philosopher's stone. I'm now wondering if Xehanort's Keyblade is named Magnum Opus, or maybe something more evil-sounding like Demonium Opus.

So, the Master could have created the Foretellers as an experiment. Maybe he wanted to see if he could create life or something like that.

 

Now for the magnum opus, I don't think the Keyblade would be in this case. Sure, it's the most powerful weapon in the world, but I think the magnum opus here would be something different. What else could the magnum opus? What else is the one thing so mysterious that no one knows how to create? The one thing the very first game established people have tried to create? The one thing that being able to create from nothing would deserve to be called "Great Work"? Yes, the heart. The heart is the magnum opus. Perhaps the Master of Masters tried to create a heart before and failed. Maybe creating the Foretellers was an attempt to create a heart, or maybe to study how it is formed.

 

Now this is where things become shaky because I'm not sure what to come with this conclusion. I originally thought the Master of Masters' goal was to enter Kingdom Hearts in order to learn how to make a heart, but now I'm unsure of that because I don't think the Master is evil. But more on that later.

 

Here goes my theory on the Master's appearance.

The Master of Masters looks like an adult blond Sora with Riku's eyes and Ansem the Wise's beard. First of all, the master likely symbolizes pride, which is associated with a lion, which is kind of associated with Sora, so he looks like Sora. He has parallels with Ansem the Wise, a scientist who had six apprentices. Also, the eye of darkness might be related to him, and they have the same color as Riku's eyes, something I didn't notice until I saw a YouTube comment pointint it out.

However, considering that his future sight is described as "The Master of Masters has an eye that can see future". So maybe only one of his eyes can see the future and he has heterochromia: One eye is Riku's light blue, and the other might be Ansem the Wise's orange, blue like Sora, green, or some other color. And one of his eyes might be covered by an eyepatch, as is common to have a magic eye covered. This would fit with the Master has some Xigbar mannerisms.

 

The only thing that is strange with the Master looking like Sora is that by my theory Gula also does, so we got two similar characters introduced in the same story. However, lions and leopards are both felines, and Gula knows at least one part of the Lost Page. Perhaps there's some thing with the Master and Gula that we don't know about, and them looking similar might be symbolic of this.

 

 

His name. Here are some possibilities.

 

-Superbia or Super. Superbia means pride and is the only sin left. However, Superbia doesn't fit with everyone else having two syllabes, and Super kind of sounds stupid as a name. Personally, I think the Master might be an odd one out when it comes to names. I mean, even after he shows up his name is not revealed, and it kind of feels pointless to keep his name a mystery if it is just going to follow a pattern.

 

-Vanitas. Vanitas is synonymous with superbia, so it kind of makes, specially if the Master also looks like Sora. The only problem is that there's already a character named Vanitas (though we also have two Ansems and it worked fine), so maybe his name could be Vani. This would fit the two syllabe pattern and, although some fans call Vanitas "Vani", such a nickname was never actually in the series, so there would be no conflict.

 

-Sol. Lion eating the sun. Also similar to Sora.

 

-Chime. From "chimera", which starts with "χ" in Greek. Might also be χ-me.

 

-Paracelsus or some other alchemy reference. An anagram of "elixir" could work.

 

-Argos. Argos Panoptes is a 100-eyed giant in Greek mythology, whose eyes were preserved forever in a peacock's tail. A peacock is both a symbol of both pride and immortality. The hundred eyes thing could refer to all the Keyblades with an eye of darkness in it.

 

-Aru Mon. Like Nomura is going to give up naming an important character after him.

 

I think I thought more other names, but I can't remember them right now. At any rate, if Back Cover doesn't reveal his name, we might learn it in KHIII, at least through Reports. I'm sure we'll collect his Reports in KHIII, as he's the only character that would make sense to have them, and every numbered title has had those.

 

The Master's other Keyblade.

The Master probably gave the horned lion Keyblade to Luxu, but I don't think that's his only Keyblade. So what other animals could his Keyblade have? Well, as Ha Zweiokopf noted in the thread I linked, there are three animals that symbolize pride: lion, peacock, and gryphon.

The lion is said to the king of all beasts, and is also the symbol of Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of war. This is the one in the Keyblade we already know exists.

 

The peacock is bird whose tail has many eye-like spots. In Hinduism it is the mount of Kartikeya, god of war. The Greeks believed the peacock's flesh did not decay after death, so it became a symbol of immortality. In Greek mythology, Argos Panoptes' hundred eyes were preserved by Hera on the peacock's tail. Christianity at one point used the peacock to symbolise God, with the tail feathers' "eyes" symbolizing Him being all-seeing.

 

The gryphon is a hybrid of a lion, the king of the beasts, and the eagle, the king of birds. It denotes strength, military courage, and leadership. That's... pretty much it.

 

With the peacock, you could have a Keyblade with multiple eyes of darkness, but with the gryphon you could allude to a lion and reference hybridism like with chimera. We could have both and say the Master has three Keyblades (and, honestly, if he's the creator he could have multiple of them), or further reference hybridism and go with a mix of the gryphon and peacock. At any rate, both options would preent a flying animal, and thus possibly allude to Sora (sky). Personally, I would go with the gryphon simply because it keeps the lion symbolism.

So, maybe a golden Keyblade with some green parts around it. The lion who eats the sun is green, and symbolizes a green substance called vitriol that purifies matter leaving gold behind.

 

 

Finally, the Master of Masters is not evil. I've been thinking this for some time, but I wondered if it was just wishful thinking of not wanting either a main villain that only shows up for one game and it's over, or another man behind the man reveal out of nowhere. For one thing, every time a villain shows up in a KH trailer, they make it pretty obvious they are a villain. In the KHII trailers, it was obvious the Organization XIII were villains, and the BBS trailers made it obvious from the very beginning that Xehanort was evil. However, with the Master of Masters, everything has been so ambiguous that it would fell a bit anti-climatic to reveal he's evil.

 

The final trailer, however, convinced me that he's not evil. His phrase, "May our hearts be our guiding key", is repeated by Mickey right after he says it, and I don't think they would have Mickey paraphrase a villainous character. Heck, even the recent Dengeki interview mentions the Master is "an awesome guy".

 

For his motivations... Maybe he tried to reach Kingdom Hearts to learn how to make a heart, but didn't know his actions would cause an apocalypse. Maybe he tried to change the future and his actions only led to said future. Or maybe he only noticed his actions would have such bad consequences when it was already too late to fix everything and gave up.

The last possibility could make his similarity to Sora have meaning by bringing up a big contrast between the two:

-Sora. An ordinary who did incredible things just by following his heart and believing everything is possible. The epitome of "May our hearts be our guiding key".

-The Master. An extraordinary person who screwed up the world by losing faith and giving up.

 

Though there could be other reasons. Maybe (but unlikely) he deliberately set up the destruction of the world because it was the only way to prevent something worse from happening. Like Bagramon in the Digimon Xros Wars manga. Basically, in the manga (where his personality is completely different from the anime and his past is closer to his species profile), Bagramon found out there were sealed demonic Digimon who would eventually wake up and spread pain and destruction through the Digital World, so he decided to create ZeedMillenniumon and euthanize the Digital World. The heroes undo his plans, and this results into the demons to wake up. Bagramon gets desperate that now the world will be burned alive instead of dying painlessly like he planned, but team Xros Heart starts fighting UltimateKhaosmon and its legion, and as they win Bagramon is filled with hope.

In the manga Bagramon isn't actually evil, he just lost hope and thought the right thing to do was to euthanize the Digital World.

 

What I'm saying is that the Master of Masters could be doing something like that, but I think the probability of this being his motivation is very low, because I can't think of what this "worse threat" could be and where it comes from, but would explain Luxu claiming the Master isn't concerned with the longevity of the world, and his behaving like there's no way to save it.

 

At any rate, I don't think the Master is evil, which would contradict the legend of the Keyblade being created for evil purposes. Though we already have contradictions, like Yen Sid saying heroes of the Keyblade didn't exist until after the Keyblade War, and we've already been shown that is not true. Honestly, I think there could be some revisionism in the legend.

The only way I think this part of the legend is true, is if the Master is not the one who created the Keyblade, and instead it was the original seekers of darkness. Correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't watched much of KHχ, but I heard there's apparently seekers of darkness who were mentioned but never seen, is that right? If so, the Master could be a former seeker who stole the first Keyblade from the seekers after defeating them. The idea of him being a former seeker could explain his black coat.

 

This thought could explain his disappearance though. The Master could have learned the group he left still exists and went to fight them alone.

 

I don't have much more ideas for the Master's motivations, but I'm sure he's not evil.

 

 

The Master is still alive in modern day. Many people believe the Foretellers could still be alive through time dillation and the Realm of Darkness, and I even once thought Neverland could work (it would be a nice way to connect a Disney world to the plot, like Nomura said he wants), but in the case of the Master, I think he did it differently.

Like I said, the Keyblade basically allows you to live forever, right? So maybe he changed bodies every time he got old to live enough to be in the present day. I mean, he's an alchemist, he probably has to knowledge required to make new bodies. Heck, he could even have the Key to Return Hearts, or be its creator. If you think about, Roxas, Naminé, and Xion need a body and a soul, the concept of Yliaster or Prima Materia could work here. Alchemy could be the way to save them.

 

 

Now, I'm almost over. But let me share one last theory about everything. Remember when I mentioned the Foretellers might have symbols in their foreheads? Well, what if they have alchemical symbols there? Or at least symbols styled after the actual alchemical symbols?

In alchemy, there are seven base metals which are also associated with planets. The Foretellers, Luxu, and Master could have some vague correlation with these seven things, although only the Foretellers would have alchemical symbols in them. Let's to try to guess who is which. First the Master is gold/sun because he's the leader, and Luxu is silver/moon because it is also a noble metal like gold. The other five are:

 

-Invi: Quicksilver/Mercury. The snake is at the back of the chimera, and mercury is closest planet to the sun.

-Aced: Iron/Mars. Mars is the  God of War, and Aced seems the most physically powerful of the five.

-Ava: Copper/Venus. Venus is the goddess of love, and Ava watns to avoid war.

-Gula: Tin/Jupiter. Jupiter is the God of Thunder, and like I said before, Ven has the symbol for tin in his room.

-Ira: Lead/Saturn. Only one left.

(This actually makes me wonder if Player, Ephemer, and Skuld could symbolize Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, or if it's a coincidence. As far as I know there's no metal for those planets)

 

That's it. Bye.

 

...

...

...

Wait, I feel like I'm forgetting something. Something really big. Hmmm... Oh yeah, hahaha. How could I forget the best part? Remember when I said that the philospher's stone has many names? Here's the one that made me sure alchemy is involved. Prepare to be mindnuked. One of the names of the philosopher's stone is...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ventus hermetis.

 

 

So, my last idea: The Master's name is Hermetis.

 

Fun fact, the magnum opus is represented by four colors: red, yellow, black, and white. Ven has three of those colors in his design, and his green armor comes close to yellow.

 

 


TLDR;



 

The Foretellers are Book of Prophecies holograms of Riku, Terra, Aqua, Kairi, and Sora or Ventus. Luxu might be human or not and looks like Eraqus. The Master of Masters is an alchemist and is not evil. The Keyblade is a philosopher's stone. The heart is a magnum opus. And Ven fits somewhere in this mess.

Edited by G-SANtos

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Some things I like about your theory:

- the connection between Xigbars eyepatch and the MoM eye that can see the future.

- the MoM is a scientist / an alchemist

- Xehanort's goal is immortality

- Gula is inspired by Sora

- lion eating the sun symbol

- chimera

 

What I don't like:

- MoM is not evil

- Foretellers are projections

- Luxu is Eraqus (I would rather think he is Ven).

 

Overall good theory.

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whhHHOAAA THAT was long xD

I really like this theory! It's has so much info and pieces together so well! :D

 

I really did get mindnuked as you said haha.

Though I'm a little wierded out by how Luxu would look like Eraqus though at the same time, it could be possible.

I mean it's Kingdom Hearts. Anything is possible  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Also about the philosopher's stone, when you mentioned that another name of it is Ventus hermetis, you think Ven could actually be involved with it.

And he could be, because many people speculated that Ven is part of the dandelions that Master Ava is recruiting to reach the "Unchained". 

I mean it's crazy but, Ven is the only kid where we don't know of his true origins. I mean where did Master Xehanort find him? Clearly, it seemed Ven didn't have any memories of where he came from so maybe he might come from another time period in the past.

 

But something that bugs me about it is the whole time travel thing, like did Ven leave a version of himself behind or not?

He's still a mystery.

 

Also the fact that Nomura drew Ven in here just yells out "ODD" because why would he add Ven next to Skuld and Ephemer?

He even appears in this and he looks much younger than he does in past BBS artworks that Nomura made (I know it's probably art style but I know the difference lol xD). No armor on his arm is present either.

 

Anyways, again, this was an amazing theory!

Specially like the idea of how the Masters of Masters will look like :D

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This is a really long and interesting theory, but you might be reading a bit too deeply into the story. Personally, I think that the backstory was a spur of the moment addition, and the rebirth theory would be as deep as KH Chi/KHUX would get xD And Xigbar wears an eyepatch because his original being, Braig, got his eye injured in a fight with Terra. 

 

But I'm liking the idea that the Master of Master could be an alchemist, I'd love to see that become a thing.

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Wow, this was a pretty in depth theory, and a great one, at that!  The Foretellers possibly being hommonculi would be an interesting twist, and having the Master Of Masters be an alchemist would be pretty badass!  And since you've mentioned it, it really doesn't seem as though he's evil! He seems too light-hearted to be evil, ya know? So maybe it could be that he tried to create a heart, but ended up making a mess of things with no way to atone! As for Luxu, I'd like to believe he is Xehanort and Eraqus's master, which would explain his Keyblade being hung on the wall in what I assume is the Land Of Departure in that KHIII E3 2015 trailer!

 

But yes, all of this is very interesting, and would prove to be crazy!

 

And omg, another name for the philosopher's stone being Ventus Hermetis? That's crazy! X_X

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