talk to me about ienzo spending his growing years being an emotionless husk and therefore not understanding what it means to be a person because he literally never learned out how, the years a person uses to discover themselves, establishing an identity were robbed from him, killed as a child and then waking up as an adult, how does this make you feel
Oooohhhh fuck yeah babey! Whippin' out google docs for this one. I've made so many essays on Ienzo and his emotional/mental development, or really lack thereof, and how absolutely pissed off it makes me. Like it really all just loops back around to me hating adults, but kfjvivjck here we go for the hundredth time cuz I literally cannot shut up about best boy and how tragic he is.
Okay so, like,,, we gotta start at the beginning here. Cuz Ienzo's got no parents. We don't know for sure what happened to them and if it was tragic or not and if it was we also don't know if Ienzo happened to see anything bad or not. There's just no way to know. But regardless! At some point Ienzo was taken in by Ansem the Wise. Surrounding Ienzo is Ansem, obviously, Even, who's pretty cranky and kinda egotistical, Dilan, a very uncaring guy, Aeleus, who obviously did care but clearly never did anything, and Braig, who well… regardless of if you think he was Luxu the whole time or not, is still not a good influence. So this is a small child sorta being raised by some not so perfect father-figures. Even tho Ansem cared I'm sure he was still busy a lot. Even was shown to be in charge of watching him but Ienzo did run off at one point implying him sneaking away is a common occurrence and/or Even isn't good at watching him like he's supposed to.
And let's keep in mind that even before Terranort showed up human experimentation was something that was happening in the castle. I dunno if all the apprentices were partaking in that before Terranort's arrival, but they definitely were afterward. And now we get into the beginning of the worst part.
Ienzo starts getting manipulated. Ansem the Wise's reports say the lab in the basement was a decision spurred on by Ienzo. Ansem had that lab built cuz Ienzo convinced him. A small child told his father figure that building a lab meant for human experiments would be a good idea. There's no way in hell Ienzo made that decision himself. He is a child who trusts the only adults that have raised him so far. If they tell him to do something he would likely do it. So Ienzo was manipulated(most likely by Terranort or Luxu) into manipulating what's basically his adoptive father.
Then it all just keeps getting worse! Eventually Ansem finds out what's going on in that lab in the basement. He wants it all shut down, but no one's going to listen to him. They've been too manipulated themselves by Terranort and Luxu. The other apprentices banish him to the Realm of Darkness and at some point Ienzo's going to have to know where Ansem went. So what do they tell him? They tell this little boy that his adoptive father went fucking mad. And not only that, but also that he fucking abandoned them! Just lost his mind and left them all, Ienzo included! And like, sure! They don't want Ienzo to know that they've become the bad guys, maybe they think it's the lesser of two evil explanations, but by how pained the poor man looked in 3, clearly what he was told had been eating at him for a whole decade. He'd been clinging onto that answer he was given ever since that day and realizing that he'd been lied to brought out just as many emotions as seeing Ansem return did.
And just when you think it can't get any worse, we reach the pinnacle. The day everyone became Nobodies. It was pretty much a choice everyone made. Dilan being the most willing, and Luxu apparently having no idea that was part of the plan considering his reaction. Or he at least didn't plan on getting stabbed by Terranort with his own Keyblade to make it happen. Anyway, I highly doubt Aeleus was truly okay with the whole thing without a ton of manipulation. And for Even it probably took less manipulation but, my point. Those two did need at least some manipulation unlike Terranort and Luxu. But Terranort was obviously being manipulated Luxu but that's not really what I'm talking about here. Anyway, Dilan has been proven to be just kinda shitty in general in a previous analysis of mine so I feel he was pretty much on board from the start, he just needed some talking to first.
So back to Ienzo! Again, there's no way this child willingly made the decision to become a Nobody. But, at this point the kid has lost his adoptive father, these are the only people he trusts, and he's a damn child! He is malleable and would believe whatever he's told since he believed Ansem really did abandon them. He's gonna trust that whatever becoming a Nobody means would actually be a good thing. And I doubt that even if Terranort and/or Luxu explained the whole deal to the other three that they'd also give the full picture to Ienzo.
So poor boy gets stabbed by Terranort and ends up a Nobody. At some point they go to The World That Never Was and take up home there. Zexion isn't the only kid in the Org, but Axel and Saix likely did keep more to themselves, plus they're teenagers and at this point 16/17 so they're almost adults. But anyway, he's in this new place that's all white and honestly to me feels like a stone cold prison from the atmosphere it gives off in Days.
And included in the whole ordeal is what comes with being a Nobody. Obviously we know everyone was lied to about not being able to get their hearts back without Kingdom Hearts, but they didn't know that. Zexion's just a kid and he's being told he doesn't have a heart anymore nor can he get it back unless they work on completing Kingdom Hearts. He's told he can't feel emotions without a heart, so he's going to question every little thing he feels and be in denial about it being emotions. And even tho he doesn't believe he can feel emotions, he still can. How else is he supposed to get a new heart eventually if he can't anyway?
So, like plenty of teens, Zexion gets angry that he can't control his life and he's stuck in the situation he's in now. He becomes the snarky Zexion that we all know. All his backhanded talk is his way of letting out even the smallest amount of frustration he can while not acting out in a way that'll get him in trouble with Xemnas. All his caretakers have become kinda worse people and he ends up surrounded by even more people that are kinda shitty. I mean, Luxord's pretty normal tho so he might be excluded from that. But then there's Lexaeus, who was shown to be regretful of leaving Zexion alone after he loses to Riku. It's pretty clear that he's the first person that really regrets the way everything has turned out, or who has at least expressed it at that point, and is upset that Zexion had to be apart of it all. But other than that it doesn't seem like anyone really cares for Zexion. He and Vexen have mostly been shown bickering and in the extra scene in KH2 Xigbar/Luxu seems to just like teasing Zexion. He even brought up the experiments they did which is likely a sore spot for Zexion considering everything he's been through.
And then there's the way he goes out. Getting strangled to death by Repliku on Axel's orders. I've gone over this one in detail before but if I'm gonna have everything on this post I might as well do it again in a condensed form. We don't really know the extent of Ienzo's relationship with Lea and Isa, but they had to have at least known each other when the two ended up becoming apprentices. And growing up in the Org together they had to have done missions together at least a few times and they were in meeting together and all that. Since those two were on the younger end as well, they had to have some understanding of how Zexion was feeling through it all. And yet Axel and Saix had it planned the whole time that Zexion was going to die at Castle Oblivion along with everyone else. This little kid that they'd known since their Radiant Garden days, dying like the others so they could get closer to having a chance to figure out what happened to a girl that Saix started questioning the very existence of. And then you have to wonder about how that affected Ienzo. Was there ever a moment where he was scared to see Riku again after a fake version killed him? Does he secretly hold it against Lea? Does he have nightmares of getting choked???
And after the worst of it is over, he finally wakes up and he's himself again. He's home, but during his reunion with Ansem is when we finally see the lasting effects of everything he's been through. He says he was just a boy, but he should have known better. That means all these years Ienzo believed he should have done something. Even as a child he should have been able to see past the manipulation and put a stop to it. But that's wrong. So completely wrong. He was a child while everyone else was an adult. Ienzo shouldn't have to keep all that guilt of not being able to do anything on his shoulders. It should have been the adults' responsibility to protect Ienzo. Being a child in the first place means he's prone to blaming himself and thinking everything was his fault. If only he could have seen through the manipulation, told Ansem when he was still around, or another adult not involved, or stopped them all himself then none of this would have happened. That's what he tells himself, which is so horribly wrong. And even as an adult he carries all that guilt around which means he was never able to realize that he couldn't have done much, if anything, and he shouldn't have had to in the first place. He doesn't realize it was the adults' responsibility. That's where the stunted maturity comes in. In that aspect he still thinks like a child cuz he never truly got to grow up from being one. He still has all that guilt even after eleven years.
And it all fucking kills me. That's how it makes me feel. It makes me continue to feel my life long contempt for adults that don't care for children cuz children are apparently inferior. And no matter what kids are going to blame themselves, even if they know they shouldn't. Even if they're self aware enough to know it's a thing kids just naturally do, they're still prone to it. And by God if there's anything so deeply realistic in anything Nomura has ever done, it's Ienzo's characterization. It's how real and human he is despite being a fictional character. Him and his struggles feel so real because we were all kids and so many of us have had fucked up parts of our childhood and if there's one relatable thing in Kingdom Hearts it's the guilt Ienzo has felt for eleven goddamn years and I'm gonna fuckin cry and this time it's not about the reunion scene. Ienzo just means that fucking much to me for all the bullshit he's had to unwillingly put up with cuz of crappy adults.