you know, I think itās really telling that out of xemnas versus ansem seeker of darkness, itās xemnas that people claim is the āredeemableā one.
what a laughable concept, seriously.
xemnas: spends 10 years gaslighting the shit out of several other people and forcing them to bend the knee and refer to him as their superior under pain of death or body horror tantamount to it. this process also includes forcing several children to be accessories to his crimes
xemnas: enacts a plan that specifically draws on the organization membersā desperation to recover their hearts by making them think that building up the KH of peopleās hearts will allow them to gain their own, when in reality it is the exact thing that is hindering their ability to recomplete. callously sacrifices all of them like garbage without a second thought
xemnas: returns in ddd and does it all over again while actively gloating about how much he was aware he was lying through his teeth and dragging these people along for a decade. expresses zero remorse about any of this at any point. throws a pity party right before he dies in kh3 claiming that he felt a sense of companionship toward his subordinates, but in the same breath openly admits that this supposed attachment never stopped him from exploiting any of them for even a moment
xemnas, in general: may or may not actually remember all of his past, does not care either way and just wants to fuck other people over for his own selfish purposes with no regard for what happens to anyone in the end. maybe not even himself. just destruction for destructionās sake.
meanwhile, ansem seeker of darkness:
is created /after/ apprentice xehanort goes crazy exiling ansem the wise, turning the other apprentices into nobodies and using the heartless manufactory to pump out heartless triggers the fall of radiant garden. spends the bulk of the years between his genesis following BBS and KH1 simply biding his time while maleficent goes crazy unleashing heartless in other worlds.
(actually might have spent nigh on 60 or 70 years without a body, just kind of chilling and not directly interfering with anything at all, if you factor in that he traveled back to young xehanortās time? if i understand the plot correctly ansem SOD never actually time traveled back to the āpresentā so he was probably just a passive observer for ages????)
anyway, ansem seeker of darkness: serves as both an antagonist but also a mentor for riku and shows him a certain respect as a peer after riku overcomes his darkness and bests him multiple times, to the point where even riku himself takes the initiative to express that he has conflicted feelings and that he might even miss ansem when heās gone. rather than express any self-pity, scorn, or attempts to manipulate, ansem simply acknowledges this by saying he ought to move on and follow his own goals.
also ansem seeker of darkness: admits during this same conversation that he was actually considering betraying xehanort himself at one point, but once he became aware the organization already had turncoats within it he just embraced apathy and let it happen while going through the motions of his role. he was already aware the organization was doomed, so why bother?
anyway thank you for coming to my TED talk. xemnas needs to be woobified 1000000% less and thrown in the trash and we need 1000000% more ansem seeker of darkness redemption arcs because out of the two heās clearly the only one who actually shows any signs of it actually making sense for him. and he does it with dignity damn it. xemnasā fake ass just made puppy dog eyes at yall One Time in kh2 and you all folded. smh
