XEHANORT ⚫⚪ERAQUS

✨ Here's the whole illustration~

love this guy. the baggy

sad we missed out on the usual giant monster boss in kh3

an old drunk man told me to enjoy my life and have fun because I’m only 24 and I have so many years and so much life ahead of me and then he went “and you know what? in ten years when you’re 34 you’ll still be young and have your whole life ahead of you” and it was really comforting to me

im about to horrify some of you

happy 3 years, my fellow trauma survivors

god i love my friends. the power of friendship is real and true

I love when fanfic authors are freakishly unhinged. "Yes, hello, I am here to write a heart wrenching story about relationships and mortality. My medium is Ducktales (2017)"

KHUX is always in my heart </3

I'm incapable to draw epic things but damn baby ven was saying the most dramatic line and bam there he was in my doodles

my friends r so talented. rb if ur friends are talented

KH Back Cover Fandub is out!!

Kingdom Hearts and the Cost of Empathy

While making yesterday's post I was reminded of this other topic that had been giving me brainworms lately. And I was going to do this on another day but the thought bugged me constantly so I'm just gonna let this out now.

Part ??? of Yoroshiu just reiterating obvious points that have been chewed on a billion times

Kingdom Hearts presents empathy as a means to have characters connect with each other in both the emotional sense and as a literal ability of sorts. If someone is happy, that joy is shared, and if someone is sad, then it's felt on a visceral level.

We've had three characters be confirmed literal empaths:

Sora, Xehanort, and Baldr

And if you know, you know.

It says a lot that 2/3 ended up being antagonists and when we look at the events that shaped them, we see how Kingdom Hearts handles the negative effects of being that exposed to others emotions, especially when put it certain circumstances.

(I didn't really want to use screenshots I used in my last post but these two shots and the following one are important here, even moreso than in the previous one LOL)

In Dark Road, Baldr was shown to be attached to his sister, Hoder, because she being a heart of pure light made him feel safe as, the screenshot shows, he was sensitive to others' hearts. That's part of why it makes Hoder's death so devestating for him.

And for Xehanort, he was able to take in his caretaker's memories and felt a personal and genuine connection with Player and their friends. It's partly why the events of Dark Road hit him so hard. Baldr states that Xehanort shares the same dynamic with Eraqs.

And even for Sora, our current hero, we've seen this Empathy be harmful to him as well. He's felt echoes of the heartache of his Heart Hotel residents (KH2, BBS, etc.) and you can assume how difficult it is to have to handle multiple people's most intense emotions.

And what happens when these characters hit their lowest? Especially when it's in tandem to this Empathy?

They break down, they fall apart, their hearts get wrapped in Darkness.

And what's the factor that turns empathy, the means to bring people together in understanding, into a force that drives people into despair?

Isolation.

If there's one consistent pattern with these characters is that being alone ends up contributing to the downfall.

Baldr falls apart because he's completely isolated from his friends in a completely white room with no windows for SEVEN DAYS. How did Odin think this was a good idea?????

(Day 1 vs Day 7)

Xehanort is a person who prefers doing things on his own. This is what makes him use others and even other versions of himself as tools for his plan. He gets wrapped up in all his plans and essentially becomes a more refined Baldr by the end.

Sora is someone who's tied to a lot of different people and their hearts. This contributes to his heart being broken down and made vulnerable to Darkness, especially with how he was kept alone in his dreams, led further and further away from Riku trying to wake him up.

(Sora being mostly alone in the new saga is going to be interesting. Strel is there but there's probably going to be an effort to isolate him again.)

Being left alone with all these emotions, with no proper way to process it—empathy becomes the most destructive force.

Despite what the mainstream might think, Kingdom Hearts has always believed in the proper balance between Light and Dark, Good and Bad. Empathy is good, it connects hearts together, but at its most extreme, it poses a danger. It can overwhelm a person and make them expel it to the world in the worst way possible.

Being completely alone with no forms of support turns compassion into despair.

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Making Kingdom Hearts Stuff Until KH4 Comes Out (Day 66)

DANDELIONS!!!!! I’m planning to get some miniprints of this done to give out at the KHUX event in Anaheim! who’s am i gonna meet there *_*?

What makes these mutually exclusive? Because Sora is right. In fact, I can’t think of a more perfect way of putting it. “The heart’s true nature is to never, ever let go.” Because this can be incredibly good and incredibly bad. It’s a double-edged sword. On one hand, yeah, our bonds with others can stand the test of time, of distance, because we carry who we love with us in our hearts, our memories. Sometimes distance even makes the heart grow fonder. Grief brings people together. As Sora points out, Xehanort separating Woody and Buzz from Andy only brought Woody and Buzz closer together.

On the other hand, you have to know when to let go. You have to accept when you’re never going to see someone again in this life. Toybox concludes with Woody, Buzz, and the gang not finding a way home, much to Sora’s dismay. “But… what about Andy? You care about him so much.” But Buzz reassures with a hand on his heart, “[Andy’s] still right here with us.” A sort of reflection of the third film, when the toys and Andy part ways permanently as a result of Andy growing up. It’s a natural progression. An inevitable grief like death.

You have to cherish someone while they’re here, and let them go when they no longer are. Because people aren’t permanent, and their lives are not yours to control. Otherwise, you’d be like Xehanort trying to play god. How is forcing people to stay any different than forcing people apart? When we cling to the past, when we can’t accept loss, that’s when we become selfish and cruel.

There’s been all this back and forth about the heart’s true nature since KH1. Is it light like Sora says? Is it dark as Xehanort claims? But the heart is both light and dark. Love can be a force of good and evil. It can inspire great compassion and great hatred. Great bravery and great fear. Incredible joy and incredible sorrow. You can be incredibly selfless and incredibly selfish in the name of love. It can make heroes and villains of us all.

I suppose it’s fitting then that letting go is the most difficult problem our hero who thrives on his bonds with others faces. Especially when he’s carrying more hearts inside than his own. Quadruple the bonds, the memories, the feelings. Quadruple the loss when it’s time to let go.