Having finished BBS I have been having some thoughts about what happened to Vanitas. It's all a little unclear. He disappeared after Ven shattered the x blade, so it could be that he's dead (ignoring kh3 Vani, because he's time traveling) but it's never that simple.
Here's a possible idea that I thought up: We're told that Sora was able to save Ven, by providing the piece that was missing. The piece that was missing was Vani.
Vani, from what I could tell, was motivated in BBS by the idea of re-fusing with Ven and being whole again (with extra x blade stuff either being a bonus or a Nort manipulation thing)
So. By that logic, we have a being who wants to be whole, but was rejected/couldn't because the hole was fixed. Something we don't know, though, is if there was any damage or consequences to Sora for repairing Ven's heart with his own (twice!).
If there is a missing piece there for Sora, that piece would be Vanitas shaped (carving a piece of that shape out to give to Ven). And Sora, who immediately accepted Ven with no questions asked, probably would have accepted Vani too.
Maybe Vani fused with Sora as a replacement for Ven, and that's where he went? And I mean a full fusion, like into one being, and not whatever the heck he and Roxas had.
It would explain some things like anti/rage form, and how he can wield two keyblades even after he has all of his passengers removed (because he would have void gear and kingdom key at that point)
I dunno if it works with the idea that Vani is an aspect of one of the Willful Darknesses from union cross though.
I'll put this under a read more because of spoilers, but to summarize, yes, I do think it's real. I also know it's from 4chan. But Pepperidge Farm remembers when the ending of Final Fantasy 15 leaked early on 4chan, as did a leak about KH3’s secret ending taking place in Tokyo or whatever the exact wording was. So Pepperidge Farm is going to evaluate this leak based on its own merits.
The Leaked List + a few notes from me:
The Final World
Quadratum
The Mysterious Tower
Underworld
Moana
The Princess and the Frog (lit. Princess and the Magic Kiss in Japanese, プリンセスと魔法のキス)—this world has possibly been scrapped during development based on the information the leaker provided, and I am inclined to believe them because it has the character 仮 written after it, which can mean “temporary” or “provisional”
RW_01 (Game Central Station)—likely Wreck-it-Ralph
RW_02 (Niceland)—likely Wreck-it-Ralph
RW_03 (Cybug Sector)—likely Wreck-it-Ralph
RW_04 (Candy Kingdom)—likely Wreck-it-Ralph
Zootopia
Metroville—likely The Incredibles
Brave (lit. Merida in Japanese, メリダ)—this world has possibly been scrapped during development based on the information the leaker provided, and I am inclined to believe them because it has the character 仮 written after it, which can mean “temporary” or “provisional”
Inside World—likely Inside Out
Land of the Dead—likely Coco
WALL-E (ウォーリー in Japanese)—this world has possibly been scrapped during development based on the information the leaker provided, and I am inclined to believe them because it has the character 仮 written after it, which can mean “temporary” or “provisional”
Galaxy World—likely Star Wars
Scala Ad Caelum (sic)
Radiant Garden
Destiny Island (sic)
WF
Image source from Imgur, since I think the post has already been deleted on 4chan.
Why I think it’s real:
The movie titles that are in Japanese use the official Japanese titles or portions of the Japanese titles instead of a clumsily translated English to Japanese title that someone who's faking it or is using a machine translation might come up with. “The Princess and the Frog” is “The Princess and the Magic Kiss” in Japanese, which exactly matches the movie title in Japanese, “Brave” is “Merida,” which is the first part of the movie title in Japanese, etc. In other words, I think a Japanese-speaking human wrote this or portions of it at the very least
Japanese doesn't mark plurals the way English does. There are a few suffixes you can add to specific nouns (like -tachi), but Japanese does not require plurals on most nouns referring to more than one thing the way English does. Destiny Islands doesn't have a plural in this list, as it's just listed as “Destiny Island.” This is exactly how the Japanese title of the world would be translated directly into English, as it’s just デスティニーアイランド (and I think someone working on the Japanese version of the game wrote this list)
Slightly awkward names in English for a couple of the new worlds, like “Inside World” and “Galaxy World.” I can almost guarantee those are the Japanese titles of the worlds directly translated into English, and there's a good chance that someone working on the English translation team might “pretty them up” to make them sound more natural in English (possibilities could include The World Inside, Galaxy’s Edge, who knows. Then again, 闇の世界 in KH3 was just “Dark World” in English as well instead of the “realm of darkness” like it had been translated in earlier games, so these titles might stay the same in English)
This is getting into speculation more on my end, but the possibly scrapped worlds being left in Japanese makes sense if they were cut early on or even before a certain point in the development process. Why do translation work on something you're not including in the game anymore?
Now, the worlds listed in Japanese do throw a wrench in my hunch this is real a bit, because of the “variation of the movie titles” naming scheme instead of unique world names created for KH specifically. Until you remember they were probably scrapped, and my guess is they were scrapped before they were given an in-universe name for the world, like how Coco is going to be called Land of the Dead, The Incredibles is Metroville, Zootopia is Zootopia because it's already the name of a location anyway, etc. The only exception to this is Moana, I got nothing there lol. Maybe they just hadn't named that world yet in-game when this list was leaked
There are a couple of inconsistencies I could be really anal about, like Underworld not having a “the” before it and “Ad” been capitalized in “Scala ad Caelum,” but “Underworld” is probably an exact translation of the Japanese title for the area (冥界, meikai, which means hades, realm of the dead) without the article included, and the capitalization of “ad” is probably just a simple oversight that only someone as anal about capitalization as me would notice (a quick Google search turned up professional video game publications also capitalizing it, so it's not like native English speakers always nail this either)
The order of the worlds makes logical sense. The tutorial will probably be in The Final World, then we play as Sora in Quadratum. The Mysterious Tower and the Underworld will probably be cutscene worlds where we see other KH characters and Donald, Goofy, and Hades in the Underworld for sure. Then Sora’s first visit to another world besides Quadratum is Moana. Wreck-it-Ralph, if I had to guess, is a world you access from a book or arcade in Quadratum and return to four times during the story, much like the Hundred Acre Woods had multiple visits during KH2 etc. The rest of the worlds might also follow the order in the list, making the Star Wars world the final Disney world you visit, which, it's Star Wars, they're going to make it a big deal lol. It being the final Disney world makes perfect sense. All the worlds listed after that are KH-original worlds ending with Destiny Islands (I hope this means Sora gets to come home in KH4), and then the mysterious “WF,” which I think will be a world that appears in the secret ending (unless it's the actual final world of the game)
Not counting the scrapped worlds or the Underworld, which is likely only a cutscene world, this gives us seven Disney worlds, which is in line with the number we had in DDD (six) and KH3 (eight) if I'm doing my math correctly
So yeah, I think this list is very likely real. If it is not, I still had a grand old time speculating and theorizing. Absolutely worth it.
Thoughts? Speculation? Comments?
Edit to add: I found the 4chan post where this was originally leaked after all. Here are screenshots:
Interesting read about the game’s development if it’s true, fuel for speculation even if it isn’t. And this list that was leaked sounds like it’s not the final list either. I’ll be curious to see what Square and Disney announce in the upcoming months!
hi there! You may have seen my lil idea post of Player2 potentially being Player’s Nobody. Thanks to some friends and a fun powerpoint night, I had the chance to craft that idea into more of a solid theory.
I’ve included some slides below, but you can see the entire powerpoint and text document where I go into more detail about it HERE!
Okay so the other day, I stumbled across a post asking why Sora forgave Riku for everything he did in KH1. And of course my Soriku brain went "It's because he loves him, duh," but I realized that something a lot of us Soriku Endgame Actually believers discuss quite a bit... might not be common knowledge. And so I got to thinking.
Sora doesn't really know when Riku got possessed in KH1.
Sora didn't see Riku get possessed. And Riku had been acting weird ever since the night of the storm. So it's reasonable to assume that Riku had been possessed before they even left the islands.
...Right?
Everything that Riku did after the islands got destroyed?
Sora thinks that was Ansem. That it was always Ansem.
We, as the players, know it wasn't, but Sora doesn't know what we know.
He doesn't realize that everything before their final confrontation was Riku. And yeah, Riku wasn't in the most mentally stable position, and Maleficent was gaslight-gatekeep-girlbossing him, but he still had control over his body. Everything he said were his own words and feelings.
And this is made even more clear by CoM, right after SDG (and Jiminy) first meet Repliku.
But... it's not. In the few scenes where Ansem was possessing Riku, he had the double-voice, and he spoke like Ansem, not like Riku. Repliku's behavior is much more like Riku's than Ansem's; he's cocky and volatile, while Ansem-Riku had an air of "untouchability" that would've made Repliku absolutely insufferable as a character.
It's clear that Sora thinks Riku was not in control during KH1. That's why Sora forgives Riku; because he thinks his friend was just another pawn in Xehanort's 5D chess game and had no autonomy throughout KH1. But that's not true. And they're going to have to talk about this.
Sora believed Riku did nothing wrong. Riku believes he did everything wrong. Sora's been trying to ignore the way Riku's words had hurt him - by deflecting the blame from his friend, by not dwelling on the events of KH1.
But with KH4 upcoming - with its focus on Sora and Riku stuck in a fictional world together, and the likelihood that Sora will have to learn to work through his darkness - Sora and Riku will have to discuss this.
And maybe, Sora and Riku will be able to have a true heart-to-heart conversation: no secrets, no lies, no misunderstandings. A KH2 Dark Margin 2.0.
And maybe they'll admit that there is a little bit of homo between them.
Feeling discouraged so have some wip I haven't had the motivation to finish.
Little brain worm of what happens if you put the necklace on riku and it accidentally opens kingdom hearts and threatens to start the world over like Xehenort intended 🤷🏻♂️
Sora and Riku communicating across dreams in Dream Drop Distance
Perhaps one or two of these are a stretch but I don't see people talking about how they talk to each other in almost every world (usually before unlocking a keyhole)
I definitely think there was some sort of link in Prankster's Paradise/Monstro because they both use the phrase "It's like Master Yen Sid said"
I'm very intrigued by them possibly experiencing memories of them as kids on the Destiny Islands talking to Terra and Aqua respectively. I think it draws attention to the promises each of them made to protect each other, despite those promises being broken/forgotten. Also interesting that Sora didn't even remember Aqua from his dream, since he didn't remember in KH3
If a heartless is formed by a heart's darkness consuming it, would it be possible for the opposite to occur? For a heart to be entirely consumed by light? Is this even remotely possible? Idk I haven't played any of the games in a while.
