At this point in time, it's pretty clear that the trope "Dark is Evil" is fairly over played in the KH series. With most of the antagonists using the power of darkness or being influenced by the dark. Leaving many people in and out of the game to have a very bad perception of it. With Eraqus vowing it to be destroyed at any cost to Aqua saying it's nothing but "Hate and Rage". Granted this is not always true, but the Bad of the Dark overshadows the Good.

 

I have a different view on darkness. Rather than dismissing it, one should be aware of it and accept it without fear of succumbing to it. It is a neutral power that although is fueled by negativity, can be used for good. The only Protagonists that the player controls, who use Darkness are Riku, Terra and Anti-form Sora. Riku is implied to be the ONLY person to conquer and use Darkness for good. Terra could never do it due to Xehanort's manipulation and his fear of darkness. Nobody's use it due to the lack of courruption on the heart by using darkness.

 

Will Darkness have a more positive light in KH3? Will Riku teach Darkness is not evil to his friends? Can Sora conquer the Darkness inside him?

 

What are your thoughts?

The series tries to play them off as something equal lately, but they honestly sure do treat it as a sort of cancer regardless. I think darkness will continue to represent the evils of the series until the very end.

At this point in time, it's pretty clear that the trope "Dark is Evil" is fairly over played in the KH series. With most of the antagonists using the power of darkness or being influenced by the dark. Leaving many people in and out of the game to have a very bad perception of it. With Eraqus vowing it to be destroyed at any cost to Aqua saying it's nothing but "Hate and Rage". Granted this is not always true, but the Bad of the Dark overshadows the Good.I have a different view on darkness. Rather than dismissing it, one should be aware of it and accept it without fear of succumbing to it. It is a neutral power that although is fueled by negativity, can be used for good. The only Protagonists that the player controls, who use Darkness are Riku, Terra and Anti-form Sora. Riku is implied to be the ONLY person to conquer and use Darkness for good. Terra could never do it due to Xehanort's manipulation and his fear of darkness. Nobody's use it due to the lack of courruption on the heart by using darkness.Will Darkness have a more positive light in KH3? Will Riku teach Darkness is not evil to his friends? Can Sora conquer the Darkness inside him?What are your thoughts?

Mickey said Darkness isn't bad though something he came to realize after his time with Riku in C.O.The real issue with darkness is that it's powerful, wild and aggressive, which lends itself more easily to evil purposes then the more passive, calmer power of Light.

Darkness draws it's power from powerful emotions that are already difficult to control and can lead to destructive tenancies, Hate, rage, jealousy etc, and it also amplifies these emotions in those who use it making them, and the darkness itself, even harder to control.

It takes a much stronger will to control darkness and not succumb to it's temptation than it does for light. 

Edited January 30, 201510 yr by Isamu_Kuno

I want the darkness to be what it always has been symbolic for, because I really can't see darkness as something good.

What I DO want to see is having too much light being portrayed to be just as bad as the darkness. 

 

I'm just saying, it's fun to play that trope of "He's so good that he's evil." 

Yeah, darkness is pretty much seen as the source of all evil (like Maleficent said in BbS)

The biggest problem is that it attracts people mostly to the wrong side -- it easy takes over someone who does not have a strong personality. I believe that this is the major reason for which darkness is "bad". 

But here and there the game tries to show that there needs to exist a balance between light and dark -- that one coexists with the other. Personally, I love when they do that. Like when the Fairy Godmother prevents Aqua from using light to destroy the darkness -- usually opposite things are tightly related one another. There's no love if there's no hate -- what is happiness if sadness didn't exist? 

Regarding how it will be seen in KH III, I do believe that it will generally be seen as bad, but not entirely. There are times when maybe it willl be even necessary -- for instance, when using dark corridors to save Aqua and stuff.

The theme of too much light is just as bad as too much dark is touched on with Eraqus. He was so blinded by the light and the shunning of darkness that he raised his blade against an innocent like Ven who was a being of only light. Ven had no control over what happened to him and rather than work to find a way to preserve Vens life, Eraqus attacked him straight out for having even the potential of being a weapon. His hatred of the darkness, his unwavering love of the light blinded him into doing something even he regretted. Its funny, I actually think Master Xehanort said it best. Light and darkness exist in a balance, and that darkness cannot be destroyed only channeled. And he and Riku are perfect examples of different ways of channeling darkness. One chose to let it control him, accepted it and channeled it into power and obsession. The other, channeled it to become a weapon to use alongside the light, not succumbing to it, but not rejecting it either. Aware of it, in control of it, and seeking to use it when necessary. That balance however is so fragile, its not a huge surprise that so many are tempted and succumb to the power of darkness and allow it to consume and control them. I think at somepoint in the KH history, people began to associate Darkness with evil because of those who succumbed. Like Riku said in KH 2:

 

Xemnas asked why they were afraid of the dark, Riku replied, "Because of who's lurking inside it."

 

Its not the Dark that is bad, just whats waiting to hurt us inside it. I guess people- rather than trying for that perfect balance- decided it was better and easier to just reject it out right; which wasn't the answer either.Think back when you were little, and you were afraid of the dark. Ask your self, was it really the dark itself you were afraid of? Or was it what you thought lurked inside it. Light and dark are neutral forces, its how we use them that decides the meaning of good and evil. 

KH as a series, ever since CoM (maybe earlier, though I think KH1 was pretty straight forward about it) keeps trying to bring up the idea that maybe the dark isn't so bad, maybe it's not something inherently evil, people just sometimes do evil things with it, that sort of thing. And of course in the end it always goes back to DARKNESS BAD, LIGHT GOOD, DESTROY ALL DARKNESS. It's one of the more aggravating parts of the story for me; I wish they'd just pick a theme and stick with it rather than switching back and forth all the time.

 

I sincerely doubt that KH3 is gonna change any of that. It might do the same old song and dance- hinting that darkness isn't evil, or can at least be controlled- but in the end it'll be all about banishing the darkness forever. (Doesn't help that Heartless, the creatures that come directly from the Realm of Darkness, are ruthless murder machines bent on devouring all hearts.) I'm holding out hope that the games after the Dark Seeker saga will go the more neutral route (a lot of people, myself included, are expecting a light-based main antagonist post-KH3).

Ive never thought of the story of coming to lets destroy all the darkness, but lets stop these people who are using it to harm others. In KH2, Riku even says something like this to Xemnas. That the dark isn't bad, its just the monsters and evil people inside it, and those who use the darkness in bad ways. I always thought that line was meant to drive that point in. And to tell us that that was the real reason they were going to destroy these seekers of darkness. Not because they wielded darkness, but because they aimed to hurt others with it.

You know I never view Darkness as a power for evil. I view darkness as an emotion, like anger, rage, wild, negatively or stuff like that. I don't think Master Xehanort is evil because the power of darkness, In my eyes Master Xehanort is evil because of his morals, you know his beliefs on what the world should look like. I don't remember what exactly happen but I remember Master Xehanort said that Darkness did cover the world once and they know so little about the Keyblade War. I think Master Xehanort wants to start the second Keyblade War to see if he could make the worlds cover in darkness again to make realm more balance or see the results of the aftermath after the second Keyblade War. But anyway like I said I don't view darkness as evil just emotion. 

I've always viewed Darkness as a corrupting force. The story that Kairi's grandmother tells us is that when the world first had the Light, everyone was happy. But as people became more envious, suspicious, and eventually angry, that's what spawned the Dark. The Dark came from the taking of something good and twisting it until it was exactly the opposite of what it started out as. This effect can be seen a couple of times in the first game. Ansem starts out with the best intentions of helping people, but this intention to help slowly becomes obsession, which leads him to taking more drastic measures, to him becoming increasingly unsatisfied and angry with the world he's found himself trapped in, possibly even to the point of despair where he can not see that any of the good he has done in his life will ever amount to anything when there's so much Darkness, and rather than keep fighting, he decides to just give in to it and assume complete power over all. Each of the villains in Maleficent's bloc each claim that they can use and control the Darkness, yet one by one, their jealousies and anger begin to spiral out of control as they each dwell on them too long to the point of ruin. 

 

Riku is probably the best example of this. His lust for adventure leads to a callous dismissal of his home, his view of Kairi as a person festers into an obsession which has him view her more as a thing to mark his own sense of worth, and his friendly rivalry with Sora blossoms into a maddening jealousy that he can't control and will constantly try to overcome, no matter what he loses in the process. He stops being the person he was as he gives more and more into his darker thoughts, allowing them to misshape what good might have come out of them.

 

Of course, now Darkness is just another word for super special awesome super powers, but whatever.

Anything can be evil if the person using it is evil.

 

 

Darkness is not bad, as it isn't good, just as well as light isn't good nor bad, they are both opposites, but they share the same fact that if used too much, one runs the risk of being controlled by it (Darkness with xehanort and what not) or being blinded by it (Light with Eraqus).

It all comes down to whoever controls it, a strong enough heart like Riku can be able to conquer it, and allow for control over it without being taken over, and until the final boss segment of Birth by sleep on terra's playthrough, he handled the darkness pretty well, ( I myself used dark impulse every chance I got since it was just soo fun to use), until Xehanort made him enrage by hurting ven and nearly killing him.

 

Terra only fell for it because of Xehanort's manipulation, Riku fought through his entire playthrough in Chains of memories, and in the end he was able to not only control it,  but lock ansem in his heart.

 

His mastery over it is shown in Dream drop distance with his commands, specially dark aura, RIku uses the dark elemental commands, and uses light as well, I find Riku more interesting than Sora simply because of his conflict with it, he fought to control it, and is now nearly immune to its influence.

 

Just because darkness has a higher influence over you than light and feeds on negative emotions doesn't mean it is evil, it just means that it is wild and unstable, and needs to be controled, like any other power.

Since Darkness is constantly getting people consumed/mutated/possessed/etc., I'm going to have to go with Eraqus on this one.

 

Hater: "Oh, but he was blinded by Light and tried to kill Ven and Terra!"

 

Quick and painless deaths vs. years of torment... (sarcasm)Gee, I can't decide.(/sarcasm)

That's the thing, it is supposed to be ambiguous in the game because that really is what real life is like. There are very few absolute truths, everything else is in different shades of grey. And the notion that the characters in this series or even us in real life should blindly cut down what we view as 'darkness' can end naught but with sorrow. The rejection of the ambiguity just causes additional unnecessary casualties.

 

And painless deaths? Are we forgetting what pain Eraqus would have gone through to follow through with killing his pupils? What pain Aqua would have felt? Even the sorrow and pain and anguish in Ven or Terras final moments knowing that someone you loved and trusted KILLED you? No death is painless.

 

It goes back to the question, should I nuke this place where my enemy lives even though I know hundreds of thousands of innocent people will die? 

 

You may hate your enemy, you may want to destroy you enemy, but you need to question at what cost is too much to destroy them.

 

To put it in the context of the game:

 

How far should Eraqus be willing to go, and what and who is he willing to sacrifice in order to stop Xehanort and protect the Light? If he killed his innocent pupils out right rather than exhaust every resource available to spare them, still protect the worlds and the Light, and defeat Xehanort, has he not become turned to the darkness then?

 

He even admits it in his final moments! "My own heart has become darkness."

 

He did not exhaust every possible resource to save the innocent, he rushed in guns blazing and tried to destroy a 16 year old kid. He could've talked and explained to Ventus what was going on, why he needed to stay home, why he needed to stay out of this fight. Heck, Eraqus could've sent Ven to Yen Sid- a powerful keyblade wielder- to have him be protected while Terra, Aqua, and he (Eraqus) went and fought Xehanort and Vanitas.

Eraqus had so many options, and he chose the one that short term seemed right, but would have sacrificed an innocent human life.

 

But then we wouldn't have a plot so, yeah. This is one of the things I love about KH, it doesn't out right claim one side is right. The characters- like real people- question whether the question light and dark should be so black and white. They question, is what I am doing really the best course of action. And they screw up, and go back and say, no I was wrong. They learn and change and move forward with new understanding of where they stand. That journey to find where we stand on these sorts of issuse, is one every human being has to go through. We will never have to go through the same situation these characters did, but the internal struggles, are all to real. All this from a game about Disney characters, Final Fantasy characters, and a kid with a Key shaped sword. It really is amazing.

Except the BBS protagonists still haven't gotten any chances to put said character-development to use, all because said "plot" evidently has a fetish for disproportionately punishing them for their naivety--which it gave them in the first place!

 

Secondly, DDD flat-out came out and said Riku's Darkness was only "good" because of his Light--which was also why he became a Spirit in Sora's Dream, and this heavily implied the Spirits in general are only friendly because they're actually part-Light.

 

P.S.: I'm sure Ven and Terra wished Eraqus had finished the job, in comparison to what MX did to them.