u/ScholarOfPleasure

I see a lot of people talk about Rinoa and Ultimecia however what I never hear anybody talk about is the literal God of the FF8 universe Hyne. So I'll just copy all the text that is missable within the game about Hyne. Because it helps explain why Sorceresses exist. Why do humans exist. And what are monsters in relationship to Hyne.

The first instance of Hyne being mentioned would be in the Information Menu when you Pause. Most players miss this because of how it doesn't tell you when it updates with new information. It says; Great Hyne: "Creator of mankind, and believed to be the first sorceress. Calling a sorceress the Great Hyne's descendant shows great respect." So it immediately tells us without Hyne Humans and Sorceresses would never exist.

The second instance is actually missable. This is dialogue between an old man and a boy at Balamb Town before Galbadias Occupation. He says:

"Long, long ago... When this world was just made, there was a strong god called 'Hyne'. This god was very, very strong, but after fighting a lot of monsters, he became very tired. So he made 'people' like you and me to do all the work, and the god went to sleep. [...] However, the god was very surprised when he awoke. Surprised that there were so many people. Hyne decided to reduce the number of people by taking away the children. [...] Of course, everyone was scared then, too. And so, the battle against Hyne began. Even though the people were small, they all got together, and finally cornered him. Hyne didn't know what to do. Out of desperation, he gave half of his body to the people and ran off with the remaining other half. Well, he was a god. Anyway, it turns out Hyne tricked the people. The half that Hyne ran away with was the half that had the stronger magic. Hmmm... It might be close by, actually. It might even be watching you."

Which setups the entire conflict going forward while giving world building. Hyne went to sleep so Humans could fight Monsters for them. However Humans were so good at it they made more Humans than they wanted. Tried to kill all the children but Humans came out on top so Hyne split in half and ran. Offering "Power" to humans.

The last mention is "The Legend of Vascaroon" which is told at the White SeeD ship. Here we get much more details as "Who" Hyne is and have better understanding of the major conflict with the Sorcereresses. The book he read says:

"Once upon a time, there was a person named Hyne. Hyne was the ruler of the world. He became lazy and decided to make a tool to make his life easier. Hyne made a neat tool. His tool could make more tools by itself. Soon there were a lot of tools in the world. These tools were actually people. When Hyne woke up, he was surprised because there were a lot of people. Hyne wanted to reduce the number of people, and used magic to burn up a lot of small people. The small people were children. The people cherished the children very much. So the people rebelled against Hyne. Hyne used powerful magic to fight them. The people couldn't use magic, but they had wisdom. Eventually, Hyne began to lose the war, because there were too many people to fight, and they were getting smarter. Therefore, he decided to make peace with people by offering them half of his body along with his powers. Hyne cut his body in half and gave the people half as he promised. Then, another war started. People began to fight over the power Hyne offered them through his body. This war lasted decades. Finally, King Zebalga and the Zebalga tribe emerged victorious and demanded Hyne's body-half to get its powers. But the body ignored their commands. Then, Vascaroon came to the rescue. He appeared before the confused Zebalgas and revealed to them that Hyne's body-half was corrupt and possessed no real power. The body-half was actually Hyne's cast-off skin. The Zebalgas were angered by this truth, and decided to destroy Hyne. The Zebalgas never found Hyne. People began to call him "Hyne the Magician" and continued to hunt him for centuries to come."

So when Hyne offer their power he tricked them. That was just an empty shell humans fought over. Now Hyne mysteriously vanished with no trace or hint where they went. Except for subtle details like Adel appearing more Male than Female despite being a "Sorcereress". A descendant of "Hyne". Perhaps this power that transfers is the Soul of Hyne much like how New Yevon in FF10 possessed other Summons to continue to exist.

Did anybody know this? There's also an additional Ultimania chapter about Hyne in way more detail. But I thought I'd focus on what's in the game first.

It's not that important but it is an interesting cutscene. Nomura in the Ultimanias has explained that Roxas and Sora dual wield because of Vens Hearts inside of theirs. But he has also explained Roxas unlocked his ability because of Xion. So this ends up really confusing people. Like Roxas isn't using Vens Keyblade. People really think this Kingdom Key is supposed to represent Ven. That's not how Nomura is explaining it at all. Roxas and Sora can dual wield because of Ven. The Keyblades they use are not Vens. Ven allowed them to be able to unlock it however the Second Keyblades come from other sources. Roxas was explicitly told by Nomura to have it awakened because of Xion.

In KH2 Sora could Dual Wield however what awakened it was the Magic Clothes. Ven was the "latent ability" for Dual Wielding. Magic Clothes enabled it. The Keyblade is Yen Sids. This is an important distinction because I see people think Roxas and Sora are using Vens Keyblade. But Vens Keyblade is Wayward Wind. If it was his Keyblade it would be the same as his. However they showcased that they got the Second Keyblades from other places. Sora got his from Yen Sid Magic clothes and Roxas got his from Xion awakening it when she disappeared. They are not both Vens Keyblade. He simply allows them to use more than one Keyblade. They do not have his Keyblade itself. Because in BBS they show Ven still has full control over it even in his sleep as he helps protect Aqua.

This game really makes me believe that I'm going to be a huge fan of this series as I keep going forward. This one was interesting to playthrough compared to 1 and 2 because the NES instruction manual was very detailed and came with a few map posters. So whenever I got stumped I could just look at the instruction manual which surprisingly kept spoilers to a minimum. Often just giving a hint rather than directly stating the solution. Most of the time the game gave enough hints to explain what you need to do. The manual was just so interesting for this playthrough I found myself reading on sections I just cleared to see what I missed and then getting whatever seemed interesting on the poster charts.

The gameplay really expanded. The way you can switch classes but keep Spells while keeping half your original stats was a pretty fun idea. Having so much party composition variety really helped navigate some of the challenges. The enemies did a lot more this time around so it made combat a lot more engaging too. Having to think about the elements you're using helped convey the uniqueness of each enemy. It also did what I don't see many JRPGs or games do which is go back to the original games map yet again. It's such a charming moment revisiting Castle Tantegel but this time from a prequel perspective. Actually even get a bit of lore on who Rubiss was and what they accomplished. When in previous names it was just this mysterious name of legend.

Really looking forward to playing DW4 and seeing how they can improve upon DW3 which already does so much more. The quality of life of returning to any town you visited made exploring so less stressful. So I'm expecting a wonderful time as I have had with the 3 other games. It's going to be the classic version again! Just in a retro wave

This is such an interesting event in the story because of the entire presentation. We know for certain this is connected to Disney World however how is it connected? It's depicted as "The Past" but it's not technically "Time Travel". What I mean by this is that Timeless River is as the name implies. This is a place outside of the normal flow of time but still connected to everything outside of it. The only thing actually connecting it to Disney Castle is the Cornerstone of Light.

So I don't think this is simply "The Past". As in this is not a connected timeline of the same characters throughout a continuous story. This is straight up the show of "Steamboat Willy".

Before this world we could just simply interpret every Disney World as actual events happening in accordance with their settings and characters. Like the stories just happened to follow the Disney plots from the movie. However Timeless River shows these are in fact the Shows and Movies themselves. That's why it's black and white. That's why the audio is muffled. That's why the film grain and film reel could be heard spinning the entire time. Sora is in "The Past". The origin point of all Disney, the Steamboat Willy show. That's why anything you do affects Disney World. It's why Pete doesn't have a memory of meeting his future self. This is Kingdom Hearts Pete invading Steamboat Willy Pete's show and making it his! So yes that's "The Past" but not in the time travel sense of the word. This is like the "Home World" of all Disney. Anything that happens that will affect all versions. For example if you plucked Mickey out from Steamboat Willy you could erase him from Three Musketeers and Fantasia. Because that's "Mickey Prime". That's THE Mickey Mouse. That's why he doesn't talk. That's why Donald and Goofy don't quite understand what he's doing or look familiar. That's not "The King".

Another example of this phenomenon would be "Country of Musketeers". For context in Dream Drop Distance you have access to these abilities called Reality Shifts. It does exactly as the name implies and for this world the Reality Shift was based on the Movie. The entire story of Disney's Three Musketeers was happening on the Comic that was being read. So when you Reality Shift you see the Comic Pages that actually affect the world. So by all technicalities we're not just in the Dream of the Past we're in the "Movie" The Three Musketeers and actually are in the comic from the story. That's why Mickey wasn't "The King". Pete was trying to be the King of Spain in the story. This is "Musketeer Mickey" but because of everything we know about Hearts and Connections this Mickey still feels a connection to Sora and helps him out. Because "Musketeer Mickey" is connected to "King Mickey" who's also connected to "Mickey the Mouse". Which is why so many people get confused and think this was "Keyblade Training" when the story is explicitly not showing that to be the case. Donald and Goofy are not a Wizard and Knight. That's why they don't recognize him and the only thing Mickey understood was that he's from an outside world.

In KH2 we see Classic Mickey being a carefree little dude who meets Sora. This would be the foundation for why Sora is always friends with Mickey and probably why the knowledge of Keyblades was so natural to him. It's also probably why Mickey knew about Sora even in KH1....

What are your guys thoughts on this?

We know Xehanort is around 90 years old in KH3. So given Queen of Hearts is older than Young Xehanort wouldn't that make her one of the oldest characters in the entire story? Dark Road tried to hand wave this by saying the worlds flowed of their own time. However that contradicts Chain of Memories, 358/2, and KH2 because they explicitly talk about "One Year". 358/2 even shows how all the worlds were still moving along in their own ways during that gap. So is this something only happening in Xehanorts time? I understand Dark Road tried to say the worlds were still being made. However they explicitly showcase Wonderland as more complete than the other worlds.

So does time really flow differently in each world? Was this just a temporary plot convenient excuse? Did the worlds only sync up in that one year because of Sora? Just how old is Queen of Hearts in KH? Using Xehanort as a comparison she has to be at least the same age as him if not way older. I need help understanding this because it's always bugged me.

I found the entire topic of "Data" really fascinating ever since Kingdom Hearts 2. Roxas spent his days in the Data copy of Twilight Town with Hayner, Pence, and Olette. He learns they were never real and only copies. How even he as a Nobody is just a copy of Sora. However traces of this experience linger in their Hearts as Sora, Hayner, Pence, and Olette all feel deep connection even though they never met except only their Data Copies. This experience however was real and ingrained into their Hearts as Sora feels sad saying goodbye to the Twilight Town Gang for Roxas and begins to cry. He's not even aware why he's crying but all he has is this overwhelming emotion.

So when Coded began I heard how many people said the story for this one actually didn't matter. How that isn't even the "Real Sora" but that this is really "Data-Sora". However the story from KH2 about Data and Connections resonated with me. If Data-Hayner's experience with Roxas made them actual friends with the Real Hayner then I don't see why I shouldn't view Data-Sora connected to Real Sora.

The beginning mystery was also really cool how the premise is about Jiminy's Journal suddenly having new words appear. Linking the concept of Books with Data was pretty clever as they scanned the Journal for more information. Then the big reveal was that it was this "Data-Roxas". Who is a fascinating character in his own right. Because at this point in the story Roxas doesn't exist making this "Data-Roxas" the only manifestation of Roxas. Since we know Data Copies and the Real People are deeply linked by their experiences coupled with the fact Roxas "Doesn't Exist" that makes me have to assume what I had to do with Data-Sora and Data-Hayner. In a very weird way this "Data-Roxas" was really Roxas. The same as "Data-Sora" is just like Sora. The story in Coded heavily expresses this deep connection with your Data Copy. Which is why in KH3 when Sora was remembering seeing Roxas in "The World That Never Was" in the Dream Worlds Donald and Goody chime and say "And the Datascape too!". We're not supposed to just take this as simply "Data-Roxas". He is technically Data but that's 100% the "Real Roxas" simultaneously due to the fact "He doesn't exist".

Kingdom Hearts used Data to expand the Magic System in interesting ways I don't see quite often. They used the concept of "Minds" being what composes them in the Datascape. When Sora was destroying the Artificial Data-Heartless their "Minds" were released and together they formed a Pureblood Data-Heartless. This shows how completely separate individual Minds can actually make up a whole Mind in itself. Which ties into many aspects with the manifestations of "Darkness", Vanitas, Roxas, Sora, and of course Xehanort.

Which is why Goofy and Donald express just how weird it is that they're exactly the same in both Coded and KH3. To me they are the same person who is split across multiple manifestations. So when we play "Data-Sora" in KH3 Re:Mind to me that's also simultaneously "Real-Sora". Which makes it very ironic when they "Can't find Sora". Because they technically did find him.

Data is genuinely handled in such a cool and interesting way that really plays with the narrative and even the medium of videogames itself. Which is a very JRPG thing to do and I'm all here for it. I hope this convinces at least one person that Coded might be just a little more interesting than people say.