Deep Dive

I’ve read through the tumblr document The Secret Reports posted. They point out the retcon that happened in KH3 when Ienzo said he’d been told Ansem had gone mad. In reality, Ansem had gotten depressed, but it never made any sense to me that the other apprentices would willingly betray him if they were as loyal as they were presented as in BBS (and the fact that Xehanort became the new favorite and a then a usurper). It would make more sense if Xehanort had to lie in order to break the three that were left behind [in KH3] in order to gain their loyalty. Ienzo definitely seemed suspicious of Braig and Xehanort in the secret ending, but it never went anywhere. In KH2FM, when Xigbar is recounting Xehanort’s takeover, he mentions “banishing that meddlesome fool,” to which Zexion doesn’t have much of a reaction since he’s just waiting for Xigbar to finish speaking and so he can leave. If he’d felt any sort of way about it, he’d most likely repressed it. It’s as much of a plot hole as him not being able to sense DiZ in CoM – the games’ narrative doesn’t allow for him to deal with it even if it’s making some powerful hints about it. Now, in KH3, he was most likely told the truth offscreen when Ansem’s code was passed along to him. This represents how the story was changed, in addition to when it all happened: Ienzo was still a child when Ansem disappeared, but if Nobodies can’t age, he was well into his teens when he lost his heart. Either way, he was a child who trusted the adults around him and paid the price for it; they were all some level of misguided, after all. The reports also conflict about certain points in the timeline being either weeks or years – definitely a retcon there. Furthermore, all throughout his early appearances, Xigbar seems to be subtly trying to raise suspicions against Xemnas (and in BBS, Master Xehanort had had to threaten him back into compliance), but this is all trashed in favor of him being Luxu, the narrative straight-up forgetting that he was ever a member of the apprentices to begin with. The Secret Reports mentions that the retcon happened to show the apprentices in a better light, but that didn’t need to be the case. I don’t need to think better of them, I just want things to make sense – I want the truth, and I wouldn’t think that much less of them for it whether they were tricked or complicit, guilty or innocent. There were several retcons involving this group, starting with KH1 where they might not even have been thought of yet (or Xehanort is very egotistical and didn’t include them in the reports anyway). I’m not too surprised, just very disappointed in some cases. 

It would suck if Xehanort only got away with writing Ansem Reports for so long because Ansem had locked himself away due to depression. Cue fan art/fiction of Ansem shutting himself in his room and Ienzo asking him if he wants to “build a snowman” (or whatever their equivalent is). Seriously, we are only certain of a few relationships of Zexion’s: he puts up with Xigbar but thinks he’s annoying, he respects Vexen but hates him (so it means more when Even vanishes from the premises and Ienzo says he’s starting to worry), he obeys Xemnas because he has to, Lexaeus is the only one he says he trusts, and we never see him interact with Xaldin or Dilan (who, by the way, had taken either their betrayal of Ansem or Ansem’s alleged abandonment very hard). He doesn’t say much about Master Ansem and straight-up doesn’t remember his parents as a Nobody, but we can assume he loved all three very much. Steven Universe needs therapy, and so does this boy. Repression only gets you so far and hurts more in the long run.

I’ve also been watching the videos ProdigyxCD is making about the character files that have been translated. I was right about their being purgatory between a Nobody getting killed and their reconstitution. Aeleus regrets giving in to the darkness and thinks he doesn’t deserve to be an apprentice, but given that all of them are guilty to an extent, what makes him worse than anyone else? They were in this together, and I’m glad none of them were banished or self-banished. Dilan’s was kind of sweet, mentioning flowers literally and as a metaphor. Even admits that wisdom is different from intelligence (as anyone who plays D&D already knows) and that the people he considers fools are the real heroes. Ienzo confirmed what I already thought about his dynamic with Even and Ansem, that Even was strict when teaching him and didn’t like Ansem coddling him. Nomura still hasn’t given any thought to who his parents were, though, so his memories of them remain vague or nonexistent. Ansem’s glad to have everything back to normal. And Demyx just wanted friends.