And that, as they say, is that.
Now, I did say that I wanted to talk about the general structure of this theory and, you know, give actual reasons for why I think it’s poorly written and… honestly just a huge mess, at the end, and there’s really no better place for it than here
I think the first big flaw with it is just the structure. The points aren’t laid out in a way that flow into each other at all. We have a general overview, that’s fine, but then it just starts throwing out random speculation, devoting an entire section right off the bat as to why Kairi isn’t who she says she is. Then there’s a section on “oh, here’s some similarities to DDD,” which doesn’t follow from “Kairi’s being controlled by Xehanort!” at all. There’s an entire section devoted to recurring themes as though those are at all evidence for a narrative conspiracy and have nothing to do with DDD. Then, suddenly, we’re capping it off with a section of “Why Riku’s the best and saved everyone” followed by “The Ending is Weird” and the Secret Movie, that has zero evidence in it. The sections feel disjointed and there’s no flow between them
Even worse than that is that some sections have no reason to exist because they contribute very little to the point of the theory. Recurring themes in a story are neat for analysis purposes, but they aren’t evidence, just supplementary to evidence you already have. That section should not exist right in the middle of the document. And the Game Mechanics section actively hurts their point, since all it does is provide evidence placing KH3 in the Sleeping Worlds, which by their own rules shouldn’t matter and actively goes against the idea that it’s in the Sleeping Realm
Speaking of the Sleeping Realm, it doesn’t exist. And that’s two points against this theory
The first is their frequent use of argumentum ad populum, or, “if most people believe it, then it must be true.” They fall back on “common knowledge” a lot without providing sources of such things. They provide a definition for The Realm of Sleep because “it’s in KHUx,” however, there’s no point in KHUx that you can use for definitive proof. It was just commonly suspected that this was a thing in KHUx, and the game has since stated otherwise
The second is the compounding of speculation upon speculation. They state something that’s speculation, then build the next point off of”then if that speculation is true” and so on. The issue with this is that if you can prove the first point of speculation wrong, then every argument after it must then also be wrong because they suppose that the first statement is true. This is the issue with worldlines, a term that has yet to be defined in canon. By basing the entire theory around a term that they can’t prove exists and a term that they can’t define, then no other part of this theory can hold true
And as you can see with both examples, there’s the issue of evidence
There’s very little that I’d call “genuine” evidence here
The issue that I think is the most important is, of course, bias. The writers admit several times in the document that they came to the conclusion before looking for evidence. They even started writing the section on symbolism in San Fransokyo before they rewatched the movie to see what symbolism was already in there. This is a little thing called confirmation bias: the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories (and what they’re biased about, I think I’ve already talked about enough). By just looking for evidence to support the theory instead of basing the theory on evidence, they open themselves up to unintentionally misinterpreting things to fit the theory
If it is unintentional. Because, you see, the other main issues with the evidence are cherrypicking and exceptionalism. I can list two parts of the theory right now where they splice together lines in a scene, cutting out important dialogue, just to make it fit their interpretation. The first is Xigbar’s speech in Olympus, where they cut out several lines to make it look like he’s saying that hearts of light are easily shattered, when the speech is about foolishly rushing to the aid of others. The second is in Joshua’s explanation of split world where they cut out him denying Riku’s claim that there’s a past version and a future version of the worlds. And this is no excuse as they later show that they’re willing to write in missing lines of text if they don’t put in the screenshot. But they do not do that in parts like this, completely misrepresenting the scenes involved to suit their own needs
The exceptionalism is their tendency to point things out as “odd” while ignoring other instances of it happening that just don’t matter to them. Repliku swapping from cloak to Dark Suit is odd, but Vanitas doing it isn’t mentioned. Xion placing her hand on her heart is weird, anyone else doing it is totally fine. They’ll go on and on about their interpretation of Sora thinking of Riku in Arendelle while ignoring that Sora has done the same with Kairi in past games and acting like this thing with Riku is somehow new and special. All of these things are “an exception.” Or, to the rest of us, “this information hurts our argument so we’re going to pretend that it doesn’t exist”
But the worst thing about this theory to me? It’s not anything that’s in it. It’s the fandom’s reaction to this document
Did you know that in all the years I’ve been on Tumblr, the only times I’ve ever gotten anon hate were because of this theory? Because I took a look at it and wanted to share why I disagreed with it?
Anyone can make a post saying “THE SRT SUCKS,” but before I started this, I’d only seen one or two summaries explaining why they thought it was bad, and nobody going through and addressing each argument. I can only suspect that it’s because people were afraid to (and many have come into my inbox saying that very thing). Because the supporters are aggressive, the writers make no effort to discourage that behavior, and so it spreads. Even I, who had less than 100 followers at the start of this project, couldn’t escape it
If I was Nomura, I’d be so disappointed in the state of things. The vitriol surrounding this theory, a theory intent on rewriting the capstone of an arc in the series he’s spent nearly two decades on, would just be so disheartening. Because clearly no one learned the lessons inherent in the series about the value of kindness and friendship
And I hope that, at the very least, some people got a little something out of me writing all of this. Big thank you to everyone who read my little debunk, whether you were here from the start or just showed up yesterday. You’re all seriously appreciated, and I hope someday people can having discussions in this fandom so that nobody ever feels talked over. You’re all great
And maybe I’ll see you all for Re:Mind
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