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Welcome to Thinking Through the Darkness, a LoreBySpec podcast with me, your host, Spec.
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This is a podcast where we talk through all of the pre-production that goes into making the theories that you see on the LoreBySpec channel and its associated channels.
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Today we're going to talk about something that I've been dancing around for the last few episodes, and brought up kind of loosely, I suppose, in a few episodes — which is this notion of going into this new saga, with the saga title being the Lost Master arc.
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Much to my realisation that it's not Masters. It is Master. No S attached to it.
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And that brings me to what we're going to talk about today — which is not only who exactly are we referring to, but why does it matter for this particular arc?
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And while we may not be able to get through all of those questions in this episode, it is something that I want to consider, at the very least.
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Because when we think about the phrase — well, think about the phrase Lost Master, and then we'll break it down into its specific, individual elements.
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When we talk about a Lost Master, we would assume that it is someone who we either have not had contact with for a very long while — because to lose something would mean that we have had it in our possession, and now no longer have it in our possession.
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So it's likely that it is somebody who we have already come in contact with, in the journey of Kingdom Hearts, and of what we know of Kingdom Hearts so far.
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That sort of leads me two ways: that this is either coming from Organization XIII — but also more likely, and probably more primarily, from Union Cross.
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However, there's challenges with this as an approach, as to who exactly we're looking for. Because it challenges, or at least takes apart, the notion of what we have seen in Union Cross.
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Because we have to assume that what we understand by — or at least my current understanding of — the gang escaping from digital Daybreak Town, which is what we ultimately find that Union Cross is: it is a data representation of the original.
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Is that we may, in fact, not need to be concerned too much with who survived and who hasn't, in a digital world.
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As, seemingly, it was just events that were getting started and restarted, consistently, to play out some sort of event — or, probably more specifically, draw someone or something out.
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We can assume that it is the Darknesses — because that was, inherently, the Master's plan: which was to, in many ways, find a way of capturing those ancient Darknesses.
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But ultimately, we don't have much proof of that. And I don't think it's wise, or reasonable, to assume that anything the Master tells us should be taken with any level of seriousness or severity — or that we should take whatever they have said at face value. Because I simply don't think that's wise.
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And it also doesn't change the potential problem. Because realising that something is a simulation — the way Brain did end up deducing — sort of implies that, within that, there is a notion of this being somewhat recurrent, for a reason.
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And what I mean by that is: there must be a reason why there needs to be a continuous simulation of a Keyblade War that kept needing to be played out.
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The word 'reenactment' comes to mind, from the Secret Reports. It was a theory that I put together not too long ago, about how it was very important, from Luxu's perspective, that these reenactments kept going into place.
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But we never really, at any point, understand why. Why, specifically, do these wars keep needing to happen — if, ultimately, there's very little that ends up happening as a result?
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By that I mean: things don't really change, one instance to another.
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The only instance we see something actually changing in a Book of Prophecies, so far, is Three — where we have seen the original playbook playing out, of darkness prevails and light expires, until things change. Where the Keyblade War happens, and light is victorious.
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Those are two separate timelines that have occurred here. Those are two separate events. One with interference, one without. One if one branch of events plays out, and another if another set of instances plays out.
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Specifically, I suppose, the interaction of Naminé finding and redirecting the Lingering Will to confront Terra-Xehanort — in order for Terra to eventually end up getting his body back.
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However, all of that — even when light does win — seems to be pretty well understood that this would be something that would happen.
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And it does indeed seem more important, as Luxu does point out, that it's far more important that the reenactment happens, rather than the consequences of the fight.
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How this ties back to this notion of the Lost Master feels important to me. Because, as I've mentioned in another video, the Keyblade Graveyard, as a place, seems very important — as a venue where only these specific events must happen here. And we're not ever really given a reason for it.
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I talked about, in the theory, how the Keyblade Graveyard seems to have had a name long before the first Keyblade War that we, the players, actually see — which would be in Union Cross and Dark Road.
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And why on earth would that have the name of Keyblade Graveyard? If this, in its essence, was the first — it kind of implies that it's not. Right? How can something have a name for events that have not occurred to give it its name yet?
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A similar proxy to this, for those who might not be following what I'm saying: Hollow Bastion was always Radiant Garden, before Maleficent took over. People just remembered the original name of Radiant Garden once the full path of Hollow Bastion had been cleared.
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That doesn't mean — and there is certainly a decent subset of players who would not have finished the complete Hollow Bastion to Radiant Garden timeline, because it's fairly easy to miss, honestly. You don't necessarily have to go back for the second or third round, post the 1,000 Heartless fight.
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You know, it's very easy to be swept up in the moment of the impending conclusion of the story, that you just don't return — to people being like, oh yeah, I remember now. That wasn't this place's original name.
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And I'm proposing here that the Keyblade Graveyard must have had a different name before it became the Keyblade Graveyard. Because, otherwise, it's a bit chicken-and-eggy. How can you have one thing that says one thing, when it's impossible for those events to have occurred to give it its name?
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It doesn't really make sense. But yet, the venue is what is the most important aspect of this.
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So we're not just talking about 'lost' in terms of people. I think we're thinking 'lost' in terms of places. In terms of knowledge. In terms of our access to materials.
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Which is very apt, considering that Union Cross and Dark Road are dead.
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Now, I was going to bring up, and go through in this podcast, bit by bit, talking through the key points in Dark Road and Union Cross as to who our potential Lost Master could be.
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But the more I'm pacing, and the more I'm talking through, the more I'm going — that's probably going to be a little pointless, and possibly a little redundant. Because of Vali and Sigurd. But mainly Vali — if that is indeed Vali.
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Because the notion of somebody from the upperclassmen surviving the events of Dark Road doesn't necessarily surprise me. That's not really my concern. Nor is it that they appear in Quadratum.
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My concern is what that means.
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So we've covered the 'lost' part of this — that it could, theoretically, be anybody from Dark Road to Union Cross. But, more likely, it's going to be somebody from either of those games.
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And then we have 'Master'. And, as I made the mistake in an earlier podcast of saying Masters, and not Master — it seems like we're only missing one.
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And if we're only missing one — who could that be? When a lot of people are, in many ways, already accounted for.
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The inclination would be to say Ava. Even when the Foretellers all gather together, to be like — where's Ava? And Luxu is just like, hey — I mean, she must have done what she set out to do. She carried it out. That's why she's not here.
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Does that imply that she is the one who is missing here? The Master who we have not found — the one who is not present?
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I'm unsure. Because there's also something specific about Ava, which is probably worthy of a mini-theory — or at least a pointer in a direction — in and of itself. Where we look at her magic, and her form.
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I followed her faction when I played Union Cross — so this is only discoveries that have been made while I've been kind of digging through things in preparation. And that she has the tendency of taking other people's forms.
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And I want to sit with that for a second, and let that sink in.
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If you are across other factions — Ava takes the form of your Union leader, and then poses as them, as you fight them, in the early game of Union Cross.
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And, indeed, towards the end — we don't necessarily have any proof, at this point, that Ava is not there, and it's actually one of the others who is missing. I actually don't know.
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Similarly, how we don't actually know — we just kind of have assumed — that the people who we have seen before, in the trailers, and in the ending cutscenes for Three, with Yozora, etc., may actually be Ava instead. I don't have any basis for that.
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But her disappearance is odd. Her disappearance is odd — along with knowing that her ability is to be able to transform, or mimic.
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So she may not be as lost, or as absent, as we think she is.
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It's something curious, and certainly not something that I would want to put out there as something formal. But how interesting of a theory do you think it would be, if it was Ava and Luxu who were working together — to make sure that Luxu could be where he needs to be, at any specific point in time?
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That would be interesting. Because a lot of what we have seen from the previous Foretellers is that we know that they don't necessarily get along — certainly not in the way that the Dandelion leaders do.
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Where there is a level of mutual understanding, of a necessity to work together — even if they don't always agree — that there is a common goal here.
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The original Foretellers are very much left out on their own, to sort of fend for themselves. And regardless of the ifs, ands, or buts about that — it's very clear that, out of necessity, the Dandelions must deviate, or differentiate, in their ability to work together.
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So — Lost Master. By definition: something that we must have already encountered, or be aware of.
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It's possible that, with the introduction of somebody who could possibly be Vali, that we are opening up the map for upperclassmen. We're opening up the route for reformed Organization members — specifically Lauriam and Elrena, as well as Luxord.
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And whatever his form, that we have seen fully formed, is. We don't know if there's a correlation between those two, by the way.
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We don't really know — and it has yet to be seen — that there actually is some sort of correlation between reforming in what we know as Reality, in terms of Kingdom Hearts, to the unreality that we see in Quadratum.
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Because we have always been working on this very defined structure in the Reality of Kingdom Hearts, where it's been very descriptive: there are Nobodies. There are Heartless. And then, if you're stuck somewhere in between, where stuff's unresolved — you end up in the Final World.
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Otherwise, it's been quite formulaic, in terms of how death manifests itself. And we do not know whether or not that has any bearing on a world that is not based in Reality. We actually don't know.
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All we know, currently, is that Luxord in Quadratum looks very similar to Luxord from Reality. And that's the most that we've got at the minute. Which would mean that there is, potentially, some correlation there.
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Especially when we consider the fact that a reformed Marluxia, Luxord, Demyx, Elrena — have not had their reformed selves found, physically, in the same way that Dilan, Even, etc. have all had their reformed bodies, in the Kingdom Hearts Reality.
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Those seem to be the bodies that are missing, in terms of Reality, on the ground. But that doesn't mean that they have been scooted off to unreality.
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It's a reasonable jump to make. But I wouldn't be too quick in making it — because we don't necessarily have any confirmation that that's what's actually happening.
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It's conjecture, at best. It's a reasonable assumption, at best. But it's not enough for us to assume that, just because they look the same, means that they are the same people.
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A good example of this is the Nobodies. All have similar personalities to their reformed selves — within reason, right?
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Elrena seems to be quite meek and mild, in comparison to Larxene. Marluxia seems to be very, you know, cunning, and deceitful, and wanting power — while Lauriam, not so much. Motivated by different things.
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So, for me, it's not really reasonable to see these people as being — oh, they're the same. Because it's very clear that there's different aspects of personality, there's different mechanisms, there's different things that are going into the distinctions between them. Lauriam versus Marluxia.
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And I don't think that's just for plot convenience. Because, personality-wise, they differ greatly, too.
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So I'm not necessarily sure — especially in the case of Vali — that we can assume that the Vali from Dark Road is the same Vali that's going to be in Quadratum.
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It's similar, in the same way, to my fears that Sora — while it's going to be necessary for his growth — will not be the same Sora as Reality Sora. Because, in many ways, it's impossible for it to be.
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The same way, for Strelitzia's — I don't want to say cowardice, right? Because it's very clear that she, in being a Keyblade wielder herself, is brave in a different regard.
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But her reluctance, or hesitancy, to connect with the player character — to make friends, that kind of thing — that would be a roadblock that may not exist for this Strelitzia. Of which doesn't seem to be the case, considering she seems to connect with Sora.
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She doesn't run away screaming from the guy in the black coat, in the newest trailer. She seems to have developed confidence, in terms of talking to people, that maybe the Strelitzia from Kingdom Hearts Reality wouldn't necessarily have.
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So I'm not inclined to really see these people as going to end up being the same people.
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Be that from the sheer trials and tribulations of knowing you've died and ended up somewhere else — and that naturally causing a personality change — to something a bit more nuanced. Which is this notion of birth by sleep, which has been very prominent: of that you are, in many ways, anew, when you make different choices. When you choose to wake up, and make different choices for yourself.
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So I'm not necessarily keen on this idea. It feels like a bit of a misnomer. It feels like a bit of a red herring.
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Because how can you, on one hand, call this a Lost Master arc — when the person who we are bound to meet is, undoubtedly, going to be somebody very different to the label that has been put on it, in terms of the person themselves?
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There's this notion, in philosophy and spirituality, that you don't step into the same river twice.
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From an atomic perspective — it's not the same atoms. It's not the same water. If there's a fish that swims past one time — the next time you come back to that river, there may not be a fish. The water might be slightly different. People might have interacted with the river. It's not the same river.
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And if that's the case — we need to deal with the philosophical elements of what it means to be lost.
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Generally speaking, if you are lost, there's two conscionable ideas around the concept of being lost. Either the person themselves is aware of their inherently being lost —
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I, personally, in my real life — I don't have a very good inner GPS. My dad used to joke about the fact that he was going to get a GPS chip implanted in me when I was a kid, because I still can't really distinguish my lefts from my rights.
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I have trouble, even if I've been to a place many times, of being able to navigate my way back.
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So being lost, for me, is often a state that — even if I have walked to a place a million times before — it is still likely, to a percentage, or to a degree, that nine times out of ten I'll probably make it to my destination. But it's not guaranteed. It's not promised.
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But that's a state that I'm aware of. Where I can turn around and be like — hey, I am lost. I am not at the destination that I have set out to get to. And so we can describe my present state as: lost.
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This has also been described in terms of people — of people who have been wayward, or lost.
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This is normally from either a morality standpoint, a philosophical standpoint, a religious standpoint — where someone has made an inflection, or a declaration, on someone else's character: that they are, or have been, lost.
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This could be somebody who's not doing something the way someone else may prefer.
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So, for example — let's say someone who is stoically anti-drinking-alcohol, and finds out that their friends, or compadres, or family, are drinking.
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And it might not be in excess. It might not be anything harmful, or, you know, anything like that. It might just simply be the act of drinking.
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And, therefore, a declarative statement is made upon the friend group — whoever is creating this behaviour — of how they are now lost. That they have not kept to a certain way. A certain ethos. A certain way of thinking, way of believing, way of acting. A way of showing up for themselves.
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It's a language heavily used in religion. My basis is going to be Christianity — but lots about a black sheep. A wayward son.
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There's lots of people within the gospel who have been lost, and then they have been found. Found, as in: returned to God. Returned to a previous state. Returned to whatever the, quote-unquote, preferred exercise, activity, or being is.
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So 'lost' is, in many ways, highly dependent, and highly depicted, on a morality standpoint.
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It is a moral thing. It's not an actual, physical thing — and, therefore, subject to conjecture. Subject to how much stock you believe in that.
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Going back to the person who's highly against drinking, versus finding out all of their friends might have a glass of wine at celebrations — and that's it. You know, somebody gets married, and there's a champagne toast, for example. They might have that champagne toast, but otherwise aren't interested in drinking.
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But, to that person — they are considered lost. While the other people — the people being deemed lost — are like: what are you talking about?
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Because that doesn't resonate with them. They're not lost. They're just doing something that someone else doesn't prefer.
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And here's where I want to tie back to something else that came up in the character files — and something that we have seen depictions of in Three, but that we haven't really gotten any sort of, I don't know, clarity around. And it is this notion that Xehanort, in and of himself, has this black goat armour.
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Now, it's something that I intend on covering in far more detail when I have done more research on it. Because I get plenty of people in the comments who are like — oh, it's Apollo. Oh, it's a reference to this. Oh, it's a reference to that. And that's not necessarily true.
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Apollo has always been about his sheep — not his goats. This notion of a sacrificial lamb is, once again, a lamb — and not a goat.
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So, if we're going to pull from religion, or old mythos — Greek, Roman, Japan — let's be sure that we're pulling from the right ones when we're supporting our arguments. Because a ram and a sheep are not the same thing, the same way a ram and a goat aren't necessarily the same thing.
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But the iconography is undeniable. There is this notion of a black sheep. There is this notion of there being more to this allegory of, specifically, Xehanort — and how he has been treated across the Dark Seeker saga — that needs to be reassessed.
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Specifically, this notion of how much influence the Master of Masters has had over Xehanort himself.
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And how, for somebody who is so assuredly and absolutely anti-darkness — to the point where he sees no problem with basically trapping, or infecting, his apprentices with the worst source of darkness, in the name of balancing out, because he has lost people to darkness before —
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it makes no sense to me that he would encourage anyone to be seeking out darkness.
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To me, that doesn't make a lot of sense, for someone who hates the darkness so thoroughly as he has been shown to do — and has told us that he has.
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That makes no real sense to me — that he would then be like: oh, you know, I'm going to encourage this guy to participate in the activities that I don't approve of. To align with a side that I don't approve of.
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That's strange to me. That logic doesn't stand, to me.
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It makes me think of two potential things. That, on one hand, this could be a case of: okay, well — if the darkness is going to exist, I want somebody to at least be manipulating it on my behalf. Which feels like a very Master of Masters thing to do.
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But, on the other hand — if you are willing to cast away those you love, and those who love you, just to spite the darkness — that makes me inclined to think that that's not the case.
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It doesn't strike me as the kind of thing that you would be encouraging anyone to seek darkness of.
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And to seek is, largely, to find. And when you lose something — what happens? You find it.
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So, if you seek darkness — what's the opposite of that? Finding light? I don't know. I don't have an answer to that.
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But I do want to take apart this sense of it being a story that we tell ourselves — that this must be a person. Because it might not be.
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And there seems to be a lot of ways that this could potentially go, that could lead it to being basically anybody. But if we take stock of who I would consider major players, who we have not seen a physical representation of — that would be Ava. Would be Brain. Would be Lauriam. Would be Elrena. Would be whoever Demyx ends up becoming.
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We haven't seen Brain. And it would be weird for him not to have some sort of representation, or input — considering we know that he did make it to Scala from the data world. Be that Brain, or be that Luxu-in-Brain — we don't really know.
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But we do know that, at least at some point, the two of them did make it out of data Daybreak Town. But it might not even matter if they did, or if they didn't — especially if Vali can be there from Dark Road.
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So, yeah. We will need to consider the purpose of the naming conventions of this a bit more thoroughly, as we try to think about what's next for this upcoming saga.
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This has been Thinking Through the Darkness, a LoreBySpec production, with me, Spec. Thank you so much for listening.
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I really appreciate you taking the time to hang out with me today.
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Just as a reminder, don't forget — if you haven't followed the LoreBySpec YouTube channel, go ahead and subscribe. It's free there.
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And if you ever feel inclined to help me keep the lights on over here, head to Ko-fi, which is in my description, to help support the podcast.
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Once again, thank you all so very much for listening, and I will see you all next time.
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Welcome to Thinking Through the Darkness, a LoreBySpec podcast with me, your host, Spec.
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This is a podcast where we talk through all of the pre-production that goes into making the theories that you see on the LoreBySpec channel and its associated channels.
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Today we're going to talk about something that I've been dancing around for the last few episodes, and brought up kind of loosely, I suppose, in a few episodes — which is this notion of going into this new saga, with the saga title being the Lost Master arc.
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Much to my realisation that it's not Masters. It is Master. No S attached to it.
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And that brings me to what we're going to talk about today — which is not only who exactly are we referring to, but why does it matter for this particular arc?
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And while we may not be able to get through all of those questions in this episode, it is something that I want to consider, at the very least.
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Because when we think about the phrase — well, think about the phrase Lost Master, and then we'll break it down into its specific, individual elements.
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When we talk about a Lost Master, we would assume that it is someone who we either have not had contact with for a very long while — because to lose something would mean that we have had it in our possession, and now no longer have it in our possession.
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So it's likely that it is somebody who we have already come in contact with, in the journey of Kingdom Hearts, and of what we know of Kingdom Hearts so far.
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That sort of leads me two ways: that this is either coming from Organization XIII — but also more likely, and probably more primarily, from Union Cross.
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However, there's challenges with this as an approach, as to who exactly we're looking for. Because it challenges, or at least takes apart, the notion of what we have seen in Union Cross.
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Because we have to assume that what we understand by — or at least my current understanding of — the gang escaping from digital Daybreak Town, which is what we ultimately find that Union Cross is: it is a data representation of the original.
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Is that we may, in fact, not need to be concerned too much with who survived and who hasn't, in a digital world.
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As, seemingly, it was just events that were getting started and restarted, consistently, to play out some sort of event — or, probably more specifically, draw someone or something out.
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We can assume that it is the Darknesses — because that was, inherently, the Master's plan: which was to, in many ways, find a way of capturing those ancient Darknesses.
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But ultimately, we don't have much proof of that. And I don't think it's wise, or reasonable, to assume that anything the Master tells us should be taken with any level of seriousness or severity — or that we should take whatever they have said at face value. Because I simply don't think that's wise.
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And it also doesn't change the potential problem. Because realising that something is a simulation — the way Brain did end up deducing — sort of implies that, within that, there is a notion of this being somewhat recurrent, for a reason.
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And what I mean by that is: there must be a reason why there needs to be a continuous simulation of a Keyblade War that kept needing to be played out.
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The word 'reenactment' comes to mind, from the Secret Reports. It was a theory that I put together not too long ago, about how it was very important, from Luxu's perspective, that these reenactments kept going into place.
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But we never really, at any point, understand why. Why, specifically, do these wars keep needing to happen — if, ultimately, there's very little that ends up happening as a result?
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By that I mean: things don't really change, one instance to another.
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The only instance we see something actually changing in a Book of Prophecies, so far, is Three — where we have seen the original playbook playing out, of darkness prevails and light expires, until things change. Where the Keyblade War happens, and light is victorious.
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Those are two separate timelines that have occurred here. Those are two separate events. One with interference, one without. One if one branch of events plays out, and another if another set of instances plays out.
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Specifically, I suppose, the interaction of Naminé finding and redirecting the Lingering Will to confront Terra-Xehanort — in order for Terra to eventually end up getting his body back.
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However, all of that — even when light does win — seems to be pretty well understood that this would be something that would happen.
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And it does indeed seem more important, as Luxu does point out, that it's far more important that the reenactment happens, rather than the consequences of the fight.
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How this ties back to this notion of the Lost Master feels important to me. Because, as I've mentioned in another video, the Keyblade Graveyard, as a place, seems very important — as a venue where only these specific events must happen here. And we're not ever really given a reason for it.
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I talked about, in the theory, how the Keyblade Graveyard seems to have had a name long before the first Keyblade War that we, the players, actually see — which would be in Union Cross and Dark Road.
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And why on earth would that have the name of Keyblade Graveyard? If this, in its essence, was the first — it kind of implies that it's not. Right? How can something have a name for events that have not occurred to give it its name yet?
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A similar proxy to this, for those who might not be following what I'm saying: Hollow Bastion was always Radiant Garden, before Maleficent took over. People just remembered the original name of Radiant Garden once the full path of Hollow Bastion had been cleared.
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That doesn't mean — and there is certainly a decent subset of players who would not have finished the complete Hollow Bastion to Radiant Garden timeline, because it's fairly easy to miss, honestly. You don't necessarily have to go back for the second or third round, post the 1,000 Heartless fight.
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You know, it's very easy to be swept up in the moment of the impending conclusion of the story, that you just don't return — to people being like, oh yeah, I remember now. That wasn't this place's original name.
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And I'm proposing here that the Keyblade Graveyard must have had a different name before it became the Keyblade Graveyard. Because, otherwise, it's a bit chicken-and-eggy. How can you have one thing that says one thing, when it's impossible for those events to have occurred to give it its name?
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It doesn't really make sense. But yet, the venue is what is the most important aspect of this.
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So we're not just talking about 'lost' in terms of people. I think we're thinking 'lost' in terms of places. In terms of knowledge. In terms of our access to materials.
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Which is very apt, considering that Union Cross and Dark Road are dead.
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Now, I was going to bring up, and go through in this podcast, bit by bit, talking through the key points in Dark Road and Union Cross as to who our potential Lost Master could be.
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But the more I'm pacing, and the more I'm talking through, the more I'm going — that's probably going to be a little pointless, and possibly a little redundant. Because of Vali and Sigurd. But mainly Vali — if that is indeed Vali.
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Because the notion of somebody from the upperclassmen surviving the events of Dark Road doesn't necessarily surprise me. That's not really my concern. Nor is it that they appear in Quadratum.
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My concern is what that means.
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So we've covered the 'lost' part of this — that it could, theoretically, be anybody from Dark Road to Union Cross. But, more likely, it's going to be somebody from either of those games.
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And then we have 'Master'. And, as I made the mistake in an earlier podcast of saying Masters, and not Master — it seems like we're only missing one.
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And if we're only missing one — who could that be? When a lot of people are, in many ways, already accounted for.
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The inclination would be to say Ava. Even when the Foretellers all gather together, to be like — where's Ava? And Luxu is just like, hey — I mean, she must have done what she set out to do. She carried it out. That's why she's not here.
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Does that imply that she is the one who is missing here? The Master who we have not found — the one who is not present?
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I'm unsure. Because there's also something specific about Ava, which is probably worthy of a mini-theory — or at least a pointer in a direction — in and of itself. Where we look at her magic, and her form.
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I followed her faction when I played Union Cross — so this is only discoveries that have been made while I've been kind of digging through things in preparation. And that she has the tendency of taking other people's forms.
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And I want to sit with that for a second, and let that sink in.
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If you are across other factions — Ava takes the form of your Union leader, and then poses as them, as you fight them, in the early game of Union Cross.
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And, indeed, towards the end — we don't necessarily have any proof, at this point, that Ava is not there, and it's actually one of the others who is missing. I actually don't know.
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Similarly, how we don't actually know — we just kind of have assumed — that the people who we have seen before, in the trailers, and in the ending cutscenes for Three, with Yozora, etc., may actually be Ava instead. I don't have any basis for that.
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But her disappearance is odd. Her disappearance is odd — along with knowing that her ability is to be able to transform, or mimic.
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So she may not be as lost, or as absent, as we think she is.
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It's something curious, and certainly not something that I would want to put out there as something formal. But how interesting of a theory do you think it would be, if it was Ava and Luxu who were working together — to make sure that Luxu could be where he needs to be, at any specific point in time?
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That would be interesting. Because a lot of what we have seen from the previous Foretellers is that we know that they don't necessarily get along — certainly not in the way that the Dandelion leaders do.
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Where there is a level of mutual understanding, of a necessity to work together — even if they don't always agree — that there is a common goal here.
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The original Foretellers are very much left out on their own, to sort of fend for themselves. And regardless of the ifs, ands, or buts about that — it's very clear that, out of necessity, the Dandelions must deviate, or differentiate, in their ability to work together.
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So — Lost Master. By definition: something that we must have already encountered, or be aware of.
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It's possible that, with the introduction of somebody who could possibly be Vali, that we are opening up the map for upperclassmen. We're opening up the route for reformed Organization members — specifically Lauriam and Elrena, as well as Luxord.
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And whatever his form, that we have seen fully formed, is. We don't know if there's a correlation between those two, by the way.
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We don't really know — and it has yet to be seen — that there actually is some sort of correlation between reforming in what we know as Reality, in terms of Kingdom Hearts, to the unreality that we see in Quadratum.
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Because we have always been working on this very defined structure in the Reality of Kingdom Hearts, where it's been very descriptive: there are Nobodies. There are Heartless. And then, if you're stuck somewhere in between, where stuff's unresolved — you end up in the Final World.
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Otherwise, it's been quite formulaic, in terms of how death manifests itself. And we do not know whether or not that has any bearing on a world that is not based in Reality. We actually don't know.
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All we know, currently, is that Luxord in Quadratum looks very similar to Luxord from Reality. And that's the most that we've got at the minute. Which would mean that there is, potentially, some correlation there.
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Especially when we consider the fact that a reformed Marluxia, Luxord, Demyx, Elrena — have not had their reformed selves found, physically, in the same way that Dilan, Even, etc. have all had their reformed bodies, in the Kingdom Hearts Reality.
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Those seem to be the bodies that are missing, in terms of Reality, on the ground. But that doesn't mean that they have been scooted off to unreality.
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It's a reasonable jump to make. But I wouldn't be too quick in making it — because we don't necessarily have any confirmation that that's what's actually happening.
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It's conjecture, at best. It's a reasonable assumption, at best. But it's not enough for us to assume that, just because they look the same, means that they are the same people.
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A good example of this is the Nobodies. All have similar personalities to their reformed selves — within reason, right?
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Elrena seems to be quite meek and mild, in comparison to Larxene. Marluxia seems to be very, you know, cunning, and deceitful, and wanting power — while Lauriam, not so much. Motivated by different things.
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So, for me, it's not really reasonable to see these people as being — oh, they're the same. Because it's very clear that there's different aspects of personality, there's different mechanisms, there's different things that are going into the distinctions between them. Lauriam versus Marluxia.
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And I don't think that's just for plot convenience. Because, personality-wise, they differ greatly, too.
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So I'm not necessarily sure — especially in the case of Vali — that we can assume that the Vali from Dark Road is the same Vali that's going to be in Quadratum.
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It's similar, in the same way, to my fears that Sora — while it's going to be necessary for his growth — will not be the same Sora as Reality Sora. Because, in many ways, it's impossible for it to be.
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The same way, for Strelitzia's — I don't want to say cowardice, right? Because it's very clear that she, in being a Keyblade wielder herself, is brave in a different regard.
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But her reluctance, or hesitancy, to connect with the player character — to make friends, that kind of thing — that would be a roadblock that may not exist for this Strelitzia. Of which doesn't seem to be the case, considering she seems to connect with Sora.
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She doesn't run away screaming from the guy in the black coat, in the newest trailer. She seems to have developed confidence, in terms of talking to people, that maybe the Strelitzia from Kingdom Hearts Reality wouldn't necessarily have.
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So I'm not inclined to really see these people as going to end up being the same people.
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Be that from the sheer trials and tribulations of knowing you've died and ended up somewhere else — and that naturally causing a personality change — to something a bit more nuanced. Which is this notion of birth by sleep, which has been very prominent: of that you are, in many ways, anew, when you make different choices. When you choose to wake up, and make different choices for yourself.
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So I'm not necessarily keen on this idea. It feels like a bit of a misnomer. It feels like a bit of a red herring.
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Because how can you, on one hand, call this a Lost Master arc — when the person who we are bound to meet is, undoubtedly, going to be somebody very different to the label that has been put on it, in terms of the person themselves?
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There's this notion, in philosophy and spirituality, that you don't step into the same river twice.
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From an atomic perspective — it's not the same atoms. It's not the same water. If there's a fish that swims past one time — the next time you come back to that river, there may not be a fish. The water might be slightly different. People might have interacted with the river. It's not the same river.
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And if that's the case — we need to deal with the philosophical elements of what it means to be lost.
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Generally speaking, if you are lost, there's two conscionable ideas around the concept of being lost. Either the person themselves is aware of their inherently being lost —
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I, personally, in my real life — I don't have a very good inner GPS. My dad used to joke about the fact that he was going to get a GPS chip implanted in me when I was a kid, because I still can't really distinguish my lefts from my rights.
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I have trouble, even if I've been to a place many times, of being able to navigate my way back.
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So being lost, for me, is often a state that — even if I have walked to a place a million times before — it is still likely, to a percentage, or to a degree, that nine times out of ten I'll probably make it to my destination. But it's not guaranteed. It's not promised.
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But that's a state that I'm aware of. Where I can turn around and be like — hey, I am lost. I am not at the destination that I have set out to get to. And so we can describe my present state as: lost.
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This has also been described in terms of people — of people who have been wayward, or lost.
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This is normally from either a morality standpoint, a philosophical standpoint, a religious standpoint — where someone has made an inflection, or a declaration, on someone else's character: that they are, or have been, lost.
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This could be somebody who's not doing something the way someone else may prefer.
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So, for example — let's say someone who is stoically anti-drinking-alcohol, and finds out that their friends, or compadres, or family, are drinking.
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And it might not be in excess. It might not be anything harmful, or, you know, anything like that. It might just simply be the act of drinking.
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And, therefore, a declarative statement is made upon the friend group — whoever is creating this behaviour — of how they are now lost. That they have not kept to a certain way. A certain ethos. A certain way of thinking, way of believing, way of acting. A way of showing up for themselves.
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It's a language heavily used in religion. My basis is going to be Christianity — but lots about a black sheep. A wayward son.
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There's lots of people within the gospel who have been lost, and then they have been found. Found, as in: returned to God. Returned to a previous state. Returned to whatever the, quote-unquote, preferred exercise, activity, or being is.
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So 'lost' is, in many ways, highly dependent, and highly depicted, on a morality standpoint.
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It is a moral thing. It's not an actual, physical thing — and, therefore, subject to conjecture. Subject to how much stock you believe in that.
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Going back to the person who's highly against drinking, versus finding out all of their friends might have a glass of wine at celebrations — and that's it. You know, somebody gets married, and there's a champagne toast, for example. They might have that champagne toast, but otherwise aren't interested in drinking.
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But, to that person — they are considered lost. While the other people — the people being deemed lost — are like: what are you talking about?
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Because that doesn't resonate with them. They're not lost. They're just doing something that someone else doesn't prefer.
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And here's where I want to tie back to something else that came up in the character files — and something that we have seen depictions of in Three, but that we haven't really gotten any sort of, I don't know, clarity around. And it is this notion that Xehanort, in and of himself, has this black goat armour.
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Now, it's something that I intend on covering in far more detail when I have done more research on it. Because I get plenty of people in the comments who are like — oh, it's Apollo. Oh, it's a reference to this. Oh, it's a reference to that. And that's not necessarily true.
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Apollo has always been about his sheep — not his goats. This notion of a sacrificial lamb is, once again, a lamb — and not a goat.
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So, if we're going to pull from religion, or old mythos — Greek, Roman, Japan — let's be sure that we're pulling from the right ones when we're supporting our arguments. Because a ram and a sheep are not the same thing, the same way a ram and a goat aren't necessarily the same thing.
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But the iconography is undeniable. There is this notion of a black sheep. There is this notion of there being more to this allegory of, specifically, Xehanort — and how he has been treated across the Dark Seeker saga — that needs to be reassessed.
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Specifically, this notion of how much influence the Master of Masters has had over Xehanort himself.
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And how, for somebody who is so assuredly and absolutely anti-darkness — to the point where he sees no problem with basically trapping, or infecting, his apprentices with the worst source of darkness, in the name of balancing out, because he has lost people to darkness before —
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it makes no sense to me that he would encourage anyone to be seeking out darkness.
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To me, that doesn't make a lot of sense, for someone who hates the darkness so thoroughly as he has been shown to do — and has told us that he has.
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That makes no real sense to me — that he would then be like: oh, you know, I'm going to encourage this guy to participate in the activities that I don't approve of. To align with a side that I don't approve of.
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That's strange to me. That logic doesn't stand, to me.
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It makes me think of two potential things. That, on one hand, this could be a case of: okay, well — if the darkness is going to exist, I want somebody to at least be manipulating it on my behalf. Which feels like a very Master of Masters thing to do.
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But, on the other hand — if you are willing to cast away those you love, and those who love you, just to spite the darkness — that makes me inclined to think that that's not the case.
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It doesn't strike me as the kind of thing that you would be encouraging anyone to seek darkness of.
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And to seek is, largely, to find. And when you lose something — what happens? You find it.
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So, if you seek darkness — what's the opposite of that? Finding light? I don't know. I don't have an answer to that.
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But I do want to take apart this sense of it being a story that we tell ourselves — that this must be a person. Because it might not be.
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And there seems to be a lot of ways that this could potentially go, that could lead it to being basically anybody. But if we take stock of who I would consider major players, who we have not seen a physical representation of — that would be Ava. Would be Brain. Would be Lauriam. Would be Elrena. Would be whoever Demyx ends up becoming.
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We haven't seen Brain. And it would be weird for him not to have some sort of representation, or input — considering we know that he did make it to Scala from the data world. Be that Brain, or be that Luxu-in-Brain — we don't really know.
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But we do know that, at least at some point, the two of them did make it out of data Daybreak Town. But it might not even matter if they did, or if they didn't — especially if Vali can be there from Dark Road.
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So, yeah. We will need to consider the purpose of the naming conventions of this a bit more thoroughly, as we try to think about what's next for this upcoming saga.
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This has been Thinking Through the Darkness, a LoreBySpec production, with me, Spec. Thank you so much for listening.
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I really appreciate you taking the time to hang out with me today.
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Once again, thank you all so very much for listening, and I will see you all next time.
