WEBVTT
00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:28.000
Welcome to Thinking Through the Darkness, a LoreBySpec podcast with me, your host, Spec.
00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:44.000
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.
00:00:44.000 --> 00:01:00.000
Let's get the shilling out of the way first. If you haven't gone and subscribed and liked and commented on the videos on LoreBySpec on the YouTube channel, please go ahead and do that now. That's one of the best ways that you can support me.
00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:12.000
This podcast is also available anywhere that you can find podcasts. So if you are listening, if you could like the podcast and maybe leave a little review, that does wonders for the algorithm on the podcast side, which really helps.
00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:45.000
And if you want to help support this podcast — this is the only one that currently doesn't use free tools, and since it's a paid thing, if you have the means to contribute to this, the link is in my description for my Ko-fi. This helps me keep the lights on and pay for all of the things that go into making this podcast a quality project.
00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:58.000
Something that came up for me when I was watching the new KH4 trailer is that we're no longer apartment-based.
00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:22.000
A lot of the first trailer was very much about Sora waking up in this new world — and, birthed by sleep, not being able to distinguish, at least for the viewer, what visions we were seeing of the outside world that could have simply been a dream, versus what this flavour of reality actually has within it.
00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:33.000
And I talked a lot, in my What I Want to See in KH4 video on the podcast, about how much I want things to slow down. For there to be a sense of deliberateness about the new phase that we're walking into.
00:02:33.000 --> 00:03:04.000
And really hinging on the fact that I want this to go somewhat Persona-y — where there's routine to his work, where he has to go and pay taxes, to get a job, before he's swept up again in all of the Kingdom Hearts-iness.
00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:13.000
And that's something that, the more I sat with it, the more I wondered — why?
00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:25.000
Because if you think about it, throughout the Dark Seeker saga — how many times have we had a home, or even a bedroom?
00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:38.000
The last bedroom that Sora has is in Kingdom Hearts 1. And then Roxas has one in 2 — at least, data-Roxas does.
00:03:38.000 --> 00:04:09.000
And that got me to thinking: why are we spending a lot of time, in the trailers — and in the stills that we got when Missing Link was cancelled — on objects? Like a phone. We see a lot of insides of what look like very corporate buildings in the trailers.
00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:24.000
It's all very sterile. Even his apartment that he wakes up in — that we assume is his apartment — is very minimalistic. It's very sterile.
00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:39.000
It's a design choice, for sure. But it's also not what we would normally see in terms of Japanese depictions of home.
00:04:39.000 --> 00:05:04.000
Now, admittedly, I'm coming from a very biased skew of the vlogs I watch on YouTube — you know, Abroad in Japan and those sorts of content creators — about, you know, real estate in Japan. And none of them look like Sora's building.
00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:15.000
It's very manicured. It's very polished. It's very stylised. It's very clinical.
00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:32.000
But it's also very cold. There's no real indicator, in any of those trailers, that much life happens in that apartment.
00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:53.000
If this was Strelitzia's apartment — and she's been there for some time, we would assume since the events of Union Cross — admittedly, we don't know how time works, per se, across two different planes of existence.
00:05:53.000 --> 00:06:11.000
How the time would map linearly, then — because, let's face it, it's not going to. And we should probably abandon the concept of trying to map from millennia ago to where we are now in Quadratum.
00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:30.000
The only thing we do know is Strelitzia saying that, from the events of the end of Three to when Sora kind of comes to in Quadratum — it's been seven days in their world; it's been several years in Reality.
00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:48.000
If Strelitzia has been living in that apartment — it's still very sterile, and devoid of her personality. Or of any personality.
00:06:48.000 --> 00:07:09.000
I have been hinting, in a few of my podcasts, at, you know — Quadratum being prison-based, or this being some sort of facsimile of containment. I wonder if we're getting hints of that through the design choices.
00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:24.000
Because it is very sterile. And you would expect that, if you've moved into a place, you would be wanting to decorate it and make it your own. And certainly Strelitzia has a personality.
00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:40.000
We saw it in Union Cross. We even see glimpses of her tendencies in the trailers — like, she's clearly there, and wants to check in, and maybe take care of Sora.
00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:53.000
That would sort of imply that she has, in some way or another, a caring, nurturing personality. It would imply that she has elements to her personality.
00:07:53.000 --> 00:08:04.000
If this was her apartment, you would expect there to be some sort of personality in that. But there's not.
00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:17.000
Equally, with Sora — I mean, anybody who's ever moved would know this: it takes time to move into a new place, to hang up paintings, to make the place your own.
00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:32.000
So it would make sense that, if it's Sora's place, it wouldn't be decorated, and maybe a little devoid of personality — and the things that make Sora him.
00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:59.000
But the other side of that coin is: sometimes people don't decorate, or invest in things, because they have a fear of moving. Of things being swept up again. So, like — what's the point of buying XYZ, if something's going to happen, and then XYZ is gone?
00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:19.000
There's also the clinical nature of how it's being depicted — how it is very minimal. How that feels like it's by design. That, in many ways, they're meant to be another cog in the machine, in this plan.
00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:38.000
It doesn't necessarily matter that it's Sora, per se. It just has to be whatever abilities, or thing, that makes Sora useful in this particular situation.
00:09:38.000 --> 00:10:08.000
I bring up The Matrix parallel quite a bit — but it does feel like it is very much Employee 2666. You know, it's giving Stanley Parable. It's giving — you are an employee at the office. You do not have any personality, or defining features, about you.
00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:24.000
And I'm wondering how deliberate of a choice that is — that this is not an adventure about what we previously know.
00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:54.000
It's also, if you think about it — despite it being a different art style, which you would expect if this was meant to be more forward-facing, more based in our reality, or a Final Fantasy-esque reality — it would look a certain way that we would expect it to, coming from the reality that us, ourselves, the player, would be able to relate and establish to.
00:10:54.000 --> 00:11:09.000
But I want to deviate from art style, in this specific nuance, to thinking purely about the colour palettes that we've seen so far.
00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:17.000
And Kingdom Hearts 4 is currently very devoid of colour.
00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:25.000
If you look at Strelitzia — her hair is the adorning feature, but she's in black and white.
00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:32.000
Sora himself — his predominant colour palette is red and black.
00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:41.000
Anyone else who we have seen — if that is actually Vali, he's in black. If you look at Luxord, he's also in black.
00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:49.000
Sigurd is the only person who has a bit of colour — but he is also wearing purple and black.
00:11:49.000 --> 00:12:02.000
We look at anybody who's in the Organization coats — hopefully we get a name for what those coats are actually meant to be called — and they're black, too.
00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:25.000
The overall suburban colour palette of, I don't know, Quadratum — outside of banners and advertisements — is predominantly greys and blacks and whites, and very minimal-ish colours.
00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:42.000
Even if we look at the Heartless, in terms of their constructs — while it's true that Pureblood Heartless, Shadows and Neoshadows, have always been darker blacks and navies — our enemies have always had colour.
00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:55.000
If you think of the Nobodies — our Dusks, our Dancers — are all very colourful.
00:12:55.000 --> 00:13:14.000
Even our — the name escapes me, but they're the enemies from Kingdom Hearts 1 that are elemental-based, that fly around, the little sprites. They are coloured. Their colours represent their elements.
00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:21.000
The worlds we go to are also predominantly colourful.
00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:39.000
I'm thinking of even our more stoic, more structured places — our San Fransokyos and stuff like that. Yes, there was a predominant, kind of darker colour palette — but there was still personality.
00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:53.000
There was still — it wasn't so clean, San Fransokyo. There were still lights. There was still colour. There were still buildings, and trash cans.
00:13:53.000 --> 00:14:11.000
And Twilight Town, similarly, in Three, was very, you know, red brick and roads. And with the adjacent wood near the old mansion — it was still always very bright, and very colourful.
00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:32.000
Even if you think of Arendelle itself — in the town, you know: thatched houses, wood buildings, busy markets, cobbled roads for the dancing minigame in the plaza. All very bright and colourful.
00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:40.000
We don't see any of that in Quadratum.
00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:58.000
The only things that we have seen that have been colour, have been outside of Quadratum — specifically in those shots from the first trailer, where we don't really have a confirmation of what those worlds are.
00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:33.000
But there is a juxtaposition that kind of needs to be dug into. That when Sora awakes, he moves from this sort of rich, luscious wood density — you know, flora, fauna — to this very sterile, stylised, contained world that he is now in.
00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:42.000
Even thinking of the NPCs that we see in the trailer — none of them, themselves, are very colourful.
00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:55.000
It's like somebody turned down the saturation in Quadratum. That's the only way I can really feel like I can describe it, with any sense of confidence.
00:15:55.000 --> 00:16:12.000
Everybody is also stylised, and dressed very similarly. Everybody's very business casual. There's nobody walking around in funky hoodies — or, it doesn't look like they're off to some sort of meeting.
00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:27.000
There's also, interestingly — there's no kids. There's no animals. There's no indicator of the other bits of life that are meant to exist within a city.
00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:45.000
You would expect that Quadratum would have the same structures, if you're trying to depict a world that us, the players, would relate to — where there would be hospitals, schools, parks, that kind of thing. Roads.
00:16:45.000 --> 00:17:08.000
But there's nothing like that that we've seen so far within the trailers. It just seems to all be this very narrow depiction of what a modern capitalist metropolis is meant to look like.
00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:22.000
And obviously, there's only so much you can get out of what is essentially, what — five, six minutes total of source material? So obviously, I don't know.
00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:43.000
But it's been pinging around in my head long enough that I feel like there's stuff worth digging into, about just how clinical and cold Quadratum feels — and whether that is intentional.
00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:49.000
Right now, I'm leaning to: very intentional.
00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:58.000
This has been Thinking Through the Darkness, a LoreBySpec production, with me, Spec. Thank you so much for listening.
00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:02.000
I really appreciate you taking the time to hang out with me today.
00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:11.000
Just as a reminder, don't forget — if you haven't followed the LoreBySpec YouTube channel, go ahead and subscribe. It's free there.
00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:19.000
If you haven't taken the time to review the podcast, or drop a like and a comment, those really help too.
00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:30.000
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.
00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:42.000
Once again, thank you all so very much for listening, and I will see you all next time.
00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:28.000
Welcome to Thinking Through the Darkness, a LoreBySpec podcast with me, your host, Spec.
00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:44.000
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.
00:00:44.000 --> 00:01:00.000
Let's get the shilling out of the way first. If you haven't gone and subscribed and liked and commented on the videos on LoreBySpec on the YouTube channel, please go ahead and do that now. That's one of the best ways that you can support me.
00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:12.000
This podcast is also available anywhere that you can find podcasts. So if you are listening, if you could like the podcast and maybe leave a little review, that does wonders for the algorithm on the podcast side, which really helps.
00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:45.000
And if you want to help support this podcast — this is the only one that currently doesn't use free tools, and since it's a paid thing, if you have the means to contribute to this, the link is in my description for my Ko-fi. This helps me keep the lights on and pay for all of the things that go into making this podcast a quality project.
00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:58.000
Something that came up for me when I was watching the new KH4 trailer is that we're no longer apartment-based.
00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:22.000
A lot of the first trailer was very much about Sora waking up in this new world — and, birthed by sleep, not being able to distinguish, at least for the viewer, what visions we were seeing of the outside world that could have simply been a dream, versus what this flavour of reality actually has within it.
00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:33.000
And I talked a lot, in my What I Want to See in KH4 video on the podcast, about how much I want things to slow down. For there to be a sense of deliberateness about the new phase that we're walking into.
00:02:33.000 --> 00:03:04.000
And really hinging on the fact that I want this to go somewhat Persona-y — where there's routine to his work, where he has to go and pay taxes, to get a job, before he's swept up again in all of the Kingdom Hearts-iness.
00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:13.000
And that's something that, the more I sat with it, the more I wondered — why?
00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:25.000
Because if you think about it, throughout the Dark Seeker saga — how many times have we had a home, or even a bedroom?
00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:38.000
The last bedroom that Sora has is in Kingdom Hearts 1. And then Roxas has one in 2 — at least, data-Roxas does.
00:03:38.000 --> 00:04:09.000
And that got me to thinking: why are we spending a lot of time, in the trailers — and in the stills that we got when Missing Link was cancelled — on objects? Like a phone. We see a lot of insides of what look like very corporate buildings in the trailers.
00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:24.000
It's all very sterile. Even his apartment that he wakes up in — that we assume is his apartment — is very minimalistic. It's very sterile.
00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:39.000
It's a design choice, for sure. But it's also not what we would normally see in terms of Japanese depictions of home.
00:04:39.000 --> 00:05:04.000
Now, admittedly, I'm coming from a very biased skew of the vlogs I watch on YouTube — you know, Abroad in Japan and those sorts of content creators — about, you know, real estate in Japan. And none of them look like Sora's building.
00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:15.000
It's very manicured. It's very polished. It's very stylised. It's very clinical.
00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:32.000
But it's also very cold. There's no real indicator, in any of those trailers, that much life happens in that apartment.
00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:53.000
If this was Strelitzia's apartment — and she's been there for some time, we would assume since the events of Union Cross — admittedly, we don't know how time works, per se, across two different planes of existence.
00:05:53.000 --> 00:06:11.000
How the time would map linearly, then — because, let's face it, it's not going to. And we should probably abandon the concept of trying to map from millennia ago to where we are now in Quadratum.
00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:30.000
The only thing we do know is Strelitzia saying that, from the events of the end of Three to when Sora kind of comes to in Quadratum — it's been seven days in their world; it's been several years in Reality.
00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:48.000
If Strelitzia has been living in that apartment — it's still very sterile, and devoid of her personality. Or of any personality.
00:06:48.000 --> 00:07:09.000
I have been hinting, in a few of my podcasts, at, you know — Quadratum being prison-based, or this being some sort of facsimile of containment. I wonder if we're getting hints of that through the design choices.
00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:24.000
Because it is very sterile. And you would expect that, if you've moved into a place, you would be wanting to decorate it and make it your own. And certainly Strelitzia has a personality.
00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:40.000
We saw it in Union Cross. We even see glimpses of her tendencies in the trailers — like, she's clearly there, and wants to check in, and maybe take care of Sora.
00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:53.000
That would sort of imply that she has, in some way or another, a caring, nurturing personality. It would imply that she has elements to her personality.
00:07:53.000 --> 00:08:04.000
If this was her apartment, you would expect there to be some sort of personality in that. But there's not.
00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:17.000
Equally, with Sora — I mean, anybody who's ever moved would know this: it takes time to move into a new place, to hang up paintings, to make the place your own.
00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:32.000
So it would make sense that, if it's Sora's place, it wouldn't be decorated, and maybe a little devoid of personality — and the things that make Sora him.
00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:59.000
But the other side of that coin is: sometimes people don't decorate, or invest in things, because they have a fear of moving. Of things being swept up again. So, like — what's the point of buying XYZ, if something's going to happen, and then XYZ is gone?
00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:19.000
There's also the clinical nature of how it's being depicted — how it is very minimal. How that feels like it's by design. That, in many ways, they're meant to be another cog in the machine, in this plan.
00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:38.000
It doesn't necessarily matter that it's Sora, per se. It just has to be whatever abilities, or thing, that makes Sora useful in this particular situation.
00:09:38.000 --> 00:10:08.000
I bring up The Matrix parallel quite a bit — but it does feel like it is very much Employee 2666. You know, it's giving Stanley Parable. It's giving — you are an employee at the office. You do not have any personality, or defining features, about you.
00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:24.000
And I'm wondering how deliberate of a choice that is — that this is not an adventure about what we previously know.
00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:54.000
It's also, if you think about it — despite it being a different art style, which you would expect if this was meant to be more forward-facing, more based in our reality, or a Final Fantasy-esque reality — it would look a certain way that we would expect it to, coming from the reality that us, ourselves, the player, would be able to relate and establish to.
00:10:54.000 --> 00:11:09.000
But I want to deviate from art style, in this specific nuance, to thinking purely about the colour palettes that we've seen so far.
00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:17.000
And Kingdom Hearts 4 is currently very devoid of colour.
00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:25.000
If you look at Strelitzia — her hair is the adorning feature, but she's in black and white.
00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:32.000
Sora himself — his predominant colour palette is red and black.
00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:41.000
Anyone else who we have seen — if that is actually Vali, he's in black. If you look at Luxord, he's also in black.
00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:49.000
Sigurd is the only person who has a bit of colour — but he is also wearing purple and black.
00:11:49.000 --> 00:12:02.000
We look at anybody who's in the Organization coats — hopefully we get a name for what those coats are actually meant to be called — and they're black, too.
00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:25.000
The overall suburban colour palette of, I don't know, Quadratum — outside of banners and advertisements — is predominantly greys and blacks and whites, and very minimal-ish colours.
00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:42.000
Even if we look at the Heartless, in terms of their constructs — while it's true that Pureblood Heartless, Shadows and Neoshadows, have always been darker blacks and navies — our enemies have always had colour.
00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:55.000
If you think of the Nobodies — our Dusks, our Dancers — are all very colourful.
00:12:55.000 --> 00:13:14.000
Even our — the name escapes me, but they're the enemies from Kingdom Hearts 1 that are elemental-based, that fly around, the little sprites. They are coloured. Their colours represent their elements.
00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:21.000
The worlds we go to are also predominantly colourful.
00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:39.000
I'm thinking of even our more stoic, more structured places — our San Fransokyos and stuff like that. Yes, there was a predominant, kind of darker colour palette — but there was still personality.
00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:53.000
There was still — it wasn't so clean, San Fransokyo. There were still lights. There was still colour. There were still buildings, and trash cans.
00:13:53.000 --> 00:14:11.000
And Twilight Town, similarly, in Three, was very, you know, red brick and roads. And with the adjacent wood near the old mansion — it was still always very bright, and very colourful.
00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:32.000
Even if you think of Arendelle itself — in the town, you know: thatched houses, wood buildings, busy markets, cobbled roads for the dancing minigame in the plaza. All very bright and colourful.
00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:40.000
We don't see any of that in Quadratum.
00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:58.000
The only things that we have seen that have been colour, have been outside of Quadratum — specifically in those shots from the first trailer, where we don't really have a confirmation of what those worlds are.
00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:33.000
But there is a juxtaposition that kind of needs to be dug into. That when Sora awakes, he moves from this sort of rich, luscious wood density — you know, flora, fauna — to this very sterile, stylised, contained world that he is now in.
00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:42.000
Even thinking of the NPCs that we see in the trailer — none of them, themselves, are very colourful.
00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:55.000
It's like somebody turned down the saturation in Quadratum. That's the only way I can really feel like I can describe it, with any sense of confidence.
00:15:55.000 --> 00:16:12.000
Everybody is also stylised, and dressed very similarly. Everybody's very business casual. There's nobody walking around in funky hoodies — or, it doesn't look like they're off to some sort of meeting.
00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:27.000
There's also, interestingly — there's no kids. There's no animals. There's no indicator of the other bits of life that are meant to exist within a city.
00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:45.000
You would expect that Quadratum would have the same structures, if you're trying to depict a world that us, the players, would relate to — where there would be hospitals, schools, parks, that kind of thing. Roads.
00:16:45.000 --> 00:17:08.000
But there's nothing like that that we've seen so far within the trailers. It just seems to all be this very narrow depiction of what a modern capitalist metropolis is meant to look like.
00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:22.000
And obviously, there's only so much you can get out of what is essentially, what — five, six minutes total of source material? So obviously, I don't know.
00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:43.000
But it's been pinging around in my head long enough that I feel like there's stuff worth digging into, about just how clinical and cold Quadratum feels — and whether that is intentional.
00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:49.000
Right now, I'm leaning to: very intentional.
00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:58.000
This has been Thinking Through the Darkness, a LoreBySpec production, with me, Spec. Thank you so much for listening.
00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:02.000
I really appreciate you taking the time to hang out with me today.
00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:11.000
Just as a reminder, don't forget — if you haven't followed the LoreBySpec YouTube channel, go ahead and subscribe. It's free there.
00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:19.000
If you haven't taken the time to review the podcast, or drop a like and a comment, those really help too.
00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:30.000
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.
00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:42.000
Once again, thank you all so very much for listening, and I will see you all next time.
