BladeWielder

I split the posts into a bunch of different links guys. I don't want to spam (since I'm not a regular contributor here and I know how annoying spammers on forums are, so I'll leave the finished links here for you all to see: http://offtopicblog1.blogspot.com/2013/06/kingdom-hearts-iii-predictions.html http://offtopicblog1.blogspot.com/2013/06/kingdom-hearts-my-favorite-things-in.html http://offtopicblog1.blogspot.com/2013/06/kingdom-hearts-plot-part-2.html http://offtopicblog1.blogspot.com/2013/06/kingdom-hearts-plot-part-1.html Thanks to those who helped

Added that stuff. I appreciate the help with organization (meant to add the part about Xehanort striking down Eraqus, but must have forgotten. As for the symbol on Namine's name, I haven't been able to get accent commands to work on my computer, so I just typed in the description. I also split the plot into two posts: Pre-BBS to the end of KH1 and Days to end of DDD. I think it works a bit better that way.

The post isn't just going to be a wall of text. I have plenty of images and videos thrown along in, but I didn't want to clutter this post with those, because I was just seeking corrections to the content. Thanks for the info on Days/COM stuff. I threw in a disclaimer noting that the stuff about destroying Xion, etc occurs after the events of COM. I also make sure to note that the organization and its plan are created well ahead of the beginning of COM. As for the lights and darknesses, I will phrase that better. Thanks a lot.

Hey guys, I've stopped by here a couple times before with different usernames, but I can't remember what I used as login info. Any way, I'm writing a KH series summary for a blog I run, and I could use your help. Here's what I've got so far: your job is to correct me where I'm wrong and tell me what I need to add that I may have forgotten. Thanks guys and gals: "The biggest criticism--in a landslide--of the Kingdom Hearts series is its incredibly deep and complex story line. Hopefully I can do a good job of explaining it here: Part One: Understanding Kingdom Hearts (the thing, not the series) Our story begins in the distant past in the Kingdom Hearts universe. To start off, let it be understood that Kingdom Hearts serves as the source of all light, power, and knowledge in the world--the details have yet to be fully explained. It existed with its counterpart, the X-Blade (pronounced "key-blade")--which served as the its protector. With this source of power, there were those who wanted to take over possession, which spawned the original Keyblade War. At the end of the war, the X-Blade was broken into 20 different pieces: 7 of light and 13 of darkness. Part Two: Enter Xehanort There series' main antagonist is Master Xehanort (pronounced zay-uh-nort)--the "master" title refers to his expertise with the game's main weapon, the standard keyblade. When he was young, Master Xehanort lived in a place called the "Destiny Islands" where he felt limited and sheltered by his existence there. Eventually, he found his way out of the world and discovered the powers of the keyblade and learned the story of Kingdom Hearts. **Quick, go read the first part of Part Three before continuing on** Prior to the events of Birth By Sleep, Master Xehanort sets forth his plan to restore the broken X-Blade and spark another keyblade war. In his first attempt, he finds a young Ven and attempts to split his heart into two pieces: one of pure light and one of pure darkness (which becomes a character known as "Vanitas"--pronounced vah-nee-tas). When this happens, Ven's heart is damaged and is restored by Sora's heart (we'll get to this more later). Part Three: "Birth By Sleep" This is the first of games in the series if we go in chronological order. In this game, there are three main characters: Terra, Aqua, and Ventus--Ven for short. For Terra and Aqua, they have been under the watchful eye of another Keyblade Master named Eraqus (pronounced air-a-cuss). As for Ventus, he has been brought to the care of Eraqus by Master Xehanort. **Quick, go read the second part of part two before going on** At the beginning of the game, Aqua and Terra are seen going for the "Mark of Mastery." As part of his plan, Xehanort corrupts Terra during his exam, causing Aqua to pass and Terra to fail. At this point, Vanitas' existence has created beings known as "Unversed" which are spawned of darkness, which causes Terra, Aqua, and Ven to set out to other worlds. Fast forwarding a bit, Eraqus learns of Xehanort's plan to have Ven and Vanitas fight to restore the X-Blade and spark the war. Due to this, Eraqus decides to eliminate Ven. When Terra learns of this, he confronts his master and uses the power of darkness to strike him down--which, naturally, is all a big part of Xehanort's plan. After this Terra, Ven, and Aqua find their way to the "Keyblade Graveyard"--which is a ruin of the Keyblade War. They confront Xehanort and Vanitas, with King Mickey--who has learned from Master Yen-Sid (the guy from Fantasia)--at their side. In this fight Xehanort frees his heart and gets inside of Terra (a new vessel...remember that for later) and Ven's fight with Vanitas causes his heart to fall "asleep"--which, in this series, is basically the equivalent of coma. The X-Blade is forged, but is broken and eventually explodes, which forces Aqua to take Ven back to "The Land of Departure"--a safe haven for keyblade wielders. Aqua uses a technique bestowed upon her after earning the Mark of Mastery to seal away the world--which hides it from visitors--and locks Ven safely away in the "Sleeping Chamber" in a place later referred to as Castle Oblivion. After this, Aqua confronts "Terranort"--which is Xehanort living within Terra's body--and eventually gets pushed to the Dark Realm--the Kingdom Hearts Universe is composed of the Realms of Darkness, Light, and in-between. *Note, through the game, Terra, Ven, and Aqua are connected to/meet Sora, Riku, and Kairi--who will be introduced at a later point--and pass on the ability to use the keyblade as a weapon** Throughout the game, we are introduced to Ansem (a researcher) and his team of assistants, which includes Lea, Dilan, Braig, and a bunch of others*. Terranort (now just calling himself Xehanort) is adopted into this group as one of Ansem's primary assistants. *Their nobodies are the original members of Organization XIII. Also relevant to future plot, Xehanort betrays Ansem, which causes Ansem to seek revenge. Part Four: Sora (and the rest of the first game in the series) Introduce Sora, the series' main protagonist. Sora is a boy who has grown up on the Destiny Islands--yes, the same place as Xehanort--with his best pals Riku (pronounced ree-koo) and Kairi (pronounced Kiii-ree...long "I" sound at the front). Kairi is from a place called Radiant Garden--we'll get to that later. As mentioned before, these three have been granted the pwoer to use the keyblade, and the first game is primarily about Sora's exposure to it. In the beginning of the game, Sora encounters a man in a strange cloak--who turns out to be Xehanort reduced to nothing but a heart. **Quick side bar, when a person does what Xehanort did, he is split into two beings: a heartless and a nobody. When both of these things are destroyed, the person is restored. Xehanort's heart goes to Terra, his heartless is the antagonist in game #1, and his nobody is the antagonist in game #2** Simply put, the islands are destroyed and Sora is forced on a quest to find his friends. He meets Donald and Goofy, who have been sent on a quest by King Mickey to find Sora. This game's primary antagonist--for most of the time, anyway--is Maleficent, the witch from Sleeping Beauty. She has teamed up with Xehanort's heartless (known as "Ansem: Seeker of Darkness" or ASOD for short) to capture the seven princesses of heart. **Another quick side bar, Xehanort's second attempt to unlock Kingdom Hearts is to collect the seven princesses of heart** Along the way, we learn that Riku is playing for the wrong side and has been tricked into using darkness to find Kairi on his own. This makes him a dark person, and eventually ASOD uses Riku as a vessel to carry out his plans (hmmm...more vessels, you say?). Sora travels to a place called "Hollow Bastion" (the ruins of Radiant Garden) where Maleficent resides. Sora eventually puts an end to Maleficent before squaring off against "Rikunort" (Riku possessed by ASOD). After doing so, ASOD is separated from Riku, but still has a strong connection to his heart. Sora learns that Kairi's heart has been resting within his--remember, Sora did the same thing with Ventus, so yay Sora's heart--and knows that he needs to free it in order to be able to seal the keyhole--keyholes are locks that seal the heart of a world, which is basically its essence. To free Kairi's heart, Sora does what Xehanort did, and he is turned into a heartless and a nobody (remember this). His heartless form is restored by Kairi--who, as it turns out, is a princess of heart and has this kind of power--other princesses of heart are: Belle, Alice, Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine. Sora seals the keyhole and eventually finds his way into the darkness, where he fights ASOD and he teams up with Riku, Mickey, Sora, and Donald to seal the door to darkness, thus ending the first game. Part Five: Chain of Memories (COM) Sora, Donald, and Goofy are stuck roaming an area unknown to them, and they eventually make it to Castle Oblivion, where they are introduced to Organization XIII (that's thirteen). **Quick sidebar, this is the major plot point that is driving the series. Xehanort's plan is to replicate himself into the thirteen darknesses so he can wage war against the seven guardians of light. This is why the Organization exists, but its members don't entirely know it yet** Castle Oblivion has a weird side effect where it causes people to forget memories while new ones are created. As SDG (Sora, Donald, and Goofy) make their way through the levels of the castle, a witch named Namine (put an accent on the e and pronounce it nah-mee-nay) replaces Sora's memories with false ones per the instructions of the organization--Namine is spawned as Kairi's nobody. The main plot of COM is that certain members of the organization--Marluxia (mar-loo-sha) and Larxene (larck-seen)--are attempting to stage a coup and overthrow the organization. In short, this fails due to the efforts of Axel, Riku, and SDG. At the end of the game, we learn two important things: to properly restore the memories in SDG, they need to be put into a sleep-like state similar to what Ven is in, so that happens for a year as Namine restores the original memories. We also learn that Riku learns to control his power over darkness and chooses to walk "The Road to Dawn"--which basically means he isn't joining himself with the light or the darkness, which makes him a unique keyblade wielder. **Sidebar- we also meet a man named Diz, who is just the original Ansem working his plot to get revenge on Xehanort** *Another sidebar, Riku was meant to be the original keyblade wielder, according to sources within the series. Sora was the number two option, and when Riku originally chose darkness, this ability was passed onto Sora, which is a good thing and is something Xehanort can't exactly predict* Part Six: 358/2 Days (the stories of the Organization) Organization XIII is run by Xehanort's nobody: Xemnas (zem-nus). He leads his group of peons in the process of collecting hearts to restore Kingdom Hearts. He eventually recruits Roxas (rocks-us), who is Sora's nobody and creates a "puppet" named Xion (dji-own...think of how "djibouti" is pronounced), who is created out of Sora's memories. They go around collecting hearts and yadda, yadda, yadda. **Yep, getting hearts is another way to get at Kingdom Hearts. Organization XIII realizes it needs to restore Sora to get these hearts more easily, so they help speed up the process** Eventually we learn that Xion cannot exist if Sora wants to be woken up from his sleep. Despite not wanting to, Roxas destroys her and those memories are returned to Sora. Throughout this game, we see how Axel--the nobody of Lea, who becomes more relevant later--is strongly tied to Roxas, which gives Lea a strong bond to Sora. Part Seven: The Nobodies (Kingdom Hearts II) Roxas has been placed inside a data world--by Diz--where he slowly learns of his existence. The final piece of patching together Sora's memories is returning Roxas to back within Sora. Roxas--who has met and befriended Xion and Namine--returns to Sora (if you haven't noticed by now, Sora's heart holds onto just about everyone and is the center of the story). SDG are revived and then travel to meet Yen Sid--remember, he taught King Mickey and is a retired Keyblade Master. Yen Sid informs the group of the Organization's plans, and they set off helping worlds and fighting Organization XIII while also looking for Riku--who was locked away in the realm of darkness and is hiding behind the disguise of ASOD--clever, right? Along the way, Sora learns of the Organization's plan to use him to restore hearts, and eventually makes his way to "The World That Never Was"--the home of the nobodies. He defeats all of the members of the Organization that he encounters leading up to the final scene. Diz reveals himself to be Ansem and attempts to digitize the contents of Kingdom Hearts to block Xemnas' attempt to restore/reveal it. Eventually this backfires and Ansem is flung back into the realm of darkness. Sora and Riku then travel to fight Xemnas by opening the door and fighting their way through to him. After they team up to defeat him, they are trapped on a shore--ironically, right across the sea from where Aqua and Ansem have just met--and eventually find a way home through the light. The group returns to the Destiny Islands and all seems happy--until Sora gets a letter from Mickey, which reveals a few key points. Part Eight: Data Sora This part won't take long: we learn that Ansem has hidden some important research inside Sora, and the group eventually gets to thank Namine for her efforts to restore Sora's memories. Mickey and the gang create a data version of Sora, who goes through and debugs the data. Really short game, very little plot reveal. Part Nine: Mark of Mastery and Xehanort's Master Plan (Dream, Drop, Distance) So if you've played the series and haven't gotten to this game yet, this is arguably where most of the plot movement takes place. So Sora and Riku get instructions from Yen Sid that they are to be tested for the Mark of Mastery. In order to do this, they must seal the "seven sleeping keyholes"--worlds that are in a state like Ven after being disrupted by Xehanort's efforts with darkness. This involves "diving" into a dream world. Time to backtrack. Remember Xehanort's master plan? Well, the key here is that Sora is the ideal 13th vessel--they've already tried with Riku, but he was too strong and fought off the darkness. Enter time travel! **Sidebar--Xehanort has used a complex theory of time travel to round up his younger self, ASOD, Xemnas, Braig (his #2), and Isa (another of Ansem's research team) to form a part of Organziation XIII** Remember the cloaked guy at Destiny Islands? Well, he was there as part of Xehanort's time travel scheme. Part of him needed to be there so that he could return on the day the islands were plunged into darkness so that he could interfere with the goal of awakening the seven sleeping worlds. At this point, Riku saves Sora by diving into Sora's dreams (dream within a dream--Inception style). Eventually we learn that Xehanort is planning to use Sora as the 13th vessel, and Riku is there to save him. In an epic final scene--talked about later after the story--Lea (restored when his nobody Axel sacrificed himself to save SDG in the realm between) appears and saves Sora from Xehanort's attempt to make him the vessel. **Sidebar, if you're confused: the original Xehanort has been restored since ASOD and Xemnas were defeated. Those two are back, however, because Xehanort had enough foresight to use time travel to bring them back to the present day so that they can be used as vessels. Yes, Xehanort is one of the smartest dudes ever** After thwarting Xehanort's master plan for the time being, we learn that Sora has been put into the coma-like state of sleep that Ven is in. Riku, through his journey, has gained the ability to unlock other people's hearts, so he dives into Sora's heart, defeats the darkness, and meets Ansem--who gives him the contents of his research that were hidden inside Sora. Eventually Riku returns to the realm of light and we see everyone in Yen Sid's study. Riku is granted the title of Keyblade Master and Sora is not. Also, we learn that Lea has now gained the power to use the keyblade after--making an assumption here--Yen Sid performed the ritual of passage onto him. In the secret ending of the game,Riku returns with Kairi, who can wield the keyblade herself. So here's what exists at the present day heading into Kingdom Hearts III: 1) Xehanort has gathered many of his past selves and can use time travel to get them back at any time. This means he can gather the 13 darknesses for one big fight. We "know" that the ones involved for sure are: Xehanort Young Xehanort ASOD Xemnas Braig Isa Terranort (this is a bit of a stretch, but seems to be a consensus that he'll be involved) 2) The "guardians" of light have started to take shape: Sora Master Riku Kairi Mickey Aqua (who is still roaming the realm of darkness for all we know) Ven (who is still asleep inside the Chamber of Sleep at Castle Oblivion) Lea (this spot may be reserved for Terra, but it's unknown at this point as Terra is still possessed by Xehanort) 3) Sora has been recruited by Mickey to go off on this next journey."