For anyone who recently watched the new cutscene "Confrontation" we learned some peculiar things about Darkness.  First of all that darkness has no goals, and secondly that Darkness is truly incorporeal and can only operate in the plane of existence by using a heart as a vessel.

Why did Ven kill strelitzia?  Previously it was believed that Darkness took over Ven and killed strelitzia to enter the Dandelions but if we can accept what Darkness is saying to be true then Ven may have already been willing to commit the act and either Darkness is merely what allows him to do it or Darkness amplifies those desires until Ven can't think of anything else.

The point is, darkness is instinct and chaos.  Darkness doesn't make plans it will merely manifest itself in a heart in the physical realm in order to exist and its presence alone will make that vessel act out their instinctual desires to various degrees.  Even if Darkness knows the plan as it's written in the book of prophecies it is powerless to avoid it because it is the embodiment of instinct and desire - when it sees a potential host it must occupy their heart.  It has no concept of right or wrong and it does not care if it's nature brings about it's own destruction.

So if Darkness is the embodiment of instinct and chaos, then light is the embodiment of intent and order.  The light that enters people's hearts grants them the capacity of "intent" - to form goals and create order.  Hearts can be seen as a balance between these two - one side is intent and the other is pure instinct - or you could say it is the difference between a person who devotes themselves entirely to one goal and a person who just goes through life fulfilling every desire they have.  Either way, both sides of the scale lead to obsession and can lead to atrocities.  This is all simply to say that good and evil are not considerations made by either the light or the darkness, only people with hearts consider these judgement calls.

Which brings me to the main point:

Like the darkness, the light is willing to do whatever it takes to fulfill it's "intent", even things that are perceived as evil to create and maintain order, including all of the 7 deadly sins which are represented in the foretellers.  People with hearts see greed, pride, gluttony, envy, etc as sins that lead to darkness because they are traits that a person with a weak heart naturally will possess and thus they are more susceptible to the darkness, but to a person of pure light that the darkness cannot touch these things can be seen as tools of manipulation that can be used to fulfill a goal.  In fact, it may be true that beings of pure light have no concept of what sins even are - the sins would only be seen as weaknesses to be exploited.

If we assume that MoM is the physical embodiment of light in this reality then it makes sense that he has orchestrated everything that has happened including the darkness.  It would mean that he is using the chaos of the darkness to create the order that he wants.  Things like Ven killing Strelitzia happened because he wanted it to happen, not out of a desire to harm strelitzia but because his nature as the incarnation of light forces him to seek the path that will fulfill his intent and create a reality with perfect order.

What is perfect order?  I think the reason why the master of master's is so exhausted from the fighting between the light and darkness is because the struggle itself goes against his nature;  he exists in a reality of endlessly creating and watching his creations be destroyed.  When he realizes he cannot overcome this cycle in their reality he concludes the perfect order would then have to be a reality where this cycle did not take place at all, which might be signalling a return to nothingness.

Which is all reflective of the many myths of creation and destruction in real life.

Edited December 17, 20204 yr by BlackDandelion

I agree with all of this, except Ven's potential desire to kill Strelitzia. First of all, like Skuld pointed out, he didn't know her. No one before the War knew who the new Union Leaders were going to be. He was recruited to the Dandelions(...right?) and probably wanted to be a Leader(who wouldn't want that?). Darkness probably twisted that notion and said Ven wanted to kill Strelitzia. Darkness always says white lies.

 I also think the MoM is the physical embodiment of light. And maybe that's why he is going to be an enemy(as shown in the KHIII epilogue of the chess board, the Lost Masters being the black chess pieces), because he wants perfect order. It seems the next Keyblade War(s) aren't about restoring the balance anymore, but about bringing the other to expiration. Sora and crew certainly wouldn't want that, right?

I don't think Ven necessarily wanted to kill Strelitzia either.  It's more likely that he was tempted by the desire to be a union leader and the darkness blinded him to the point where he may have not even realized what he was doing, the way I was sort of elaborating on how obsession can cause you to lose sight of what is right or wrong.  All of this is completely dependent on darkness telling the truth in the scene though.

The thing that really calls this theory into question is how Ven could be so susceptible to darkness when he is portrayed as such an innocent character.  And considering his relationship with Vanitas it almost makes me think Ven's bipolar or something.  Then again, sometimes the quiet and seemingly innocent ones are really the ones you need to look out for lol

1 hour ago, BlackDandelion said:

I don't think Ven necessarily wanted to kill Strelitzia either.  It's more likely that he was tempted by the desire to be a union leader and the darkness blinded him to the point where he may have not even realized what he was doing, the way I was sort of elaborating on how obsession can cause you to lose sight of what is right or wrong.  All of this is completely dependent on darkness telling the truth in the scene though.

The thing that really calls this theory into question is how Ven could be so susceptible to darkness when he is portrayed as such an innocent character.  And considering his relationship with Vanitas it almost makes me think Ven's bipolar or something.  Then again, sometimes the quiet and seemingly innocent ones are really the ones you need to look out for lol

I doubt Darkness was telling the 100% truth. Darkness and evil people in the real world always say white lies and twist the truth into half-truths until it deafens people who then forget the truth. You can clearly see that Darkness is intentionally saying those things to manipulate/confuse Lauriam.

The quiet ones are usually quiet because they're guilty and have a lot of secrets lol

Well the biggest distinction between my idea of the light and darkness would be that the light is capable of lying and the darkness actually isnt.  the darkness says ven wanted to kill strelitzia because from its perspective there is no difference between murder and any other action necessary to get what you want - ven killed strelitzia because he wanted to become a union leader more than he wanted her to be alive, therefore he wanted to kill strelitzia and thats the end of it.  the darkness could lie on a whim if its just something it wanted to do for the sake of the action itself, but the darkness would not tell lies with the intent of manipulation because thinking more than a single step ahead is against its nature.

The conclusion that ven killed strelitzia because he wanted to eliminates all context and nuance of the situation, but like darkness said: the circumstances of the results, intentions, and preconditions of the act are not things it concerns itself with

 

Conversely, the light manipulates people with lies expressely for the purpose of fulfilling goals; and it does so because it can and without remorse because it does not consider telling lies to be unethical.  and the same would apply to the rest of the sins obviously if my theory was right 

Edited December 18, 20204 yr by BlackDandelion

On 12/18/2020 at 5:19 AM, BlackDandelion said:

Well the biggest distinction between my idea of the light and darkness would be that the light is capable of lying and the darkness actually isnt.

I'm not so sure about this. 'Cause if this were true, then wouldn't the whole World be full of evil? Light isn't supposed to be evil. And I think the darkness is capable of lying, 'cause sins, lying among them, is an action of evil, therefore darkness. 

It's probably a misconception to say that the light is good and the darkness is evil, I don't think either of them are really good or evil, they're just aspects of the heart with different natures.

Things that are done for "the greater good" are quite often perceived as evil.  For example, Eraqus attempting to kill Ven.  While the act was certainly justified and may have been the best option for everyone, I don't think anyone would call it a "good" thing to do.  I don't think Eraqus opened his heart to darkness when he tried to kill him either because i don't believe he did it for any kind of selfish reason, so my conclusion was the decision was made on behalf of the light.

The same way that murder can be justified, so can lies.  People lie to each other all the time, often they lie because they feel other people can't handle the truth.  People lie to themselves even more so.  If we were to simply label lying as evil then the world would be full of evil people.  The master of masters has also misrepresented the truth in order to manipulate people which is arguably worse than lying anyway.  

Then where's the good in the World? Helping and saving people, which Sora does constantly, is a good action, something only light can do. 

From the World's perspective, it would seem Eraqus's actions are good, because he was doing it for the good of the World. But from Terra's perspective, it was killing his friend. It really depends on whose perspective you're looking through. For Eraqus, it was to save the World, which consists of billions or trillions of people, or saving this one kid while leaving the World to its fate. Even if Eraqus chose to not harm Ven, he wouldn't be saving anyone at all actually, because Xehanort was trying to restart the World. Say he succeeded in killing Ven. Then Xehanort's plan would've been foiled and the World would be saved. Victory doesn't come without sacrifices. But of course, things turned out differently and TVA saved the world.

From the darkness' perspective, it wouldn't benefit them, rather, it would snuff out the darkness. But everything is darkness' fault anyway; therefore, they're bad. There's the Realm of Light and the Realm of Darkness, right? The Realm of Light is where light resides and the Realm of Darkness is where the darkness resides. But there's darkness in the Realm of Light, which is evidence that the darkness were the ones who originally disrupted the balance of Light and Darkness because they meddled. In the Realm of Light, it is strictly forbidden to meddle in other worlds. Same goes with the Realms of Light and Darkness. If any of them meddled, that would disrupt the balance and cause wars, which is what the darkness did, therefore, they're bad and must be stopped. Like Xehanort said, from the light, not the darkness, came the people, who had hearts. They had pure hearts, void of darkness, because that was their nature and the order of their Realm. But when the darkness interfered and disrupted the order, it disrupted the balance, and that's when people started growing their own darkness. And that's where lying, along with all the other sins, came from. People aren't pure light anymore; they're light and darkness, which is why they merge their actions with both light and darkness, good and evil. Lying is evil, but since people are half-and-half, they are able to twist those evil actions for what is supposedly good, but it is still wrong to sin.