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corishadowfang · 8 months

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Dark Road writing prompt: Xehanort asks Master Odin about Daybreak Town and the age of fairytales?

(For this)

Oooh, man, this is such an interesting one!

It wasn’t that strange, really, to find Xehanort still in the classroom long after the others had left. It was a little strange to find him there without Eraqus, a textbook open in his lap, chessboard completely absent. The boy leaned against the window, staring at the slowly darkening world outside, and Odin hesitated, wondering if he should ask or if he should leave him be. In the end, his concern won out, and he cleared his throat, approaching quietly. “What are you still doing here, Xehanort?”

Xehanort barely reacted; his shoulder twitched a little, but for the most part he remained remarkably still.

“Wouldn’t you prefer to be spending time with your friends?” Odin peered down at the textbook curiously. Xehanort had opened the book to a section near the front; his hands and arms were mostly covering the pages, fingers curled tightly, but Odin thought he could make out the faint sketch of a building.

“Just…thinking,” Xehanort answered finally, voice distant. “I was reading ahead.”

“I see,” Odin said, even though he wasn’t really sure he did. He wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to say, though, and so after a beat of silence he went back to his desk—returning to collect tests, which he was embarrassed to admit he’d forgotten earlier. “I wouldn’t stay here too much longer; good study habits are important, but so is rest.”

“Right.”

The silence was filled for a moment with rustling papers, Odin carefully sticking the tests into his bag, then double-checking to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. Xehanort broke it after a moment with a tentative question: “Hey. What do you know about the Age of Fairytales?”

It was a question Odin got often, so he supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised when Xehanort asked. Still, it gave him pause, because the boy had asked so quietly, like his mind was somewhere else.

Xehanort half-glanced back towards him, and his voice was a little more present as he added, “It’s what I was reading about.”

That didn’t feel like the whole truth—but it didn’t feel like something Odin could really call out as a lie, either. “The Age of Fairytales was a time before the worlds as we know them existed. Much of it is shrouded in myth; we know very little factual information about this time, with most of what we’ve obtained passed down as legends. Scholars have been trying to pick them apart for years, to separate fact from fiction, but the unfortunate truth is there’s very little solid information about that time.”

“But we know some things, right?”

Odin moved closer; Xehanort’s arms had shifted enough so that he could finally see the drawing. “You’re reading about Daybreak Town.”

Xehanort was quiet.

Odin hummed quietly, studying the sketch. “It is true that we’ve been able to put certain ideas together. Daybreak Town, for instance, is a place we’re sure once existed—we’ve found some of the ruins, underneath Scala ad Caelum itself. We know that a great Keyblade War occurred, and suspect that it was what split the world, based on remnants we’ve found in other locations. We know that the first recorded Master is Master Ephemer, the founder of our world—but that there were Masters before him, their names lost to time. It is a very…tricky thing, to try to unravel, but can also be quite fascinating. I’m glad you’re taking an interest.”

“Master Ephemer wasn’t the only one.”

The statement caught Odin off guard, and he studied Xehanort curiously. “Have you studied this before?” He was pretty sure that Xehanort came from off-world—but then again, he’d found his way here on his own. It wasn’t impossible that a Keyblade wielder had raised him.

“No. Not exactly. But I heard…stories. From my mentor.”

Definitely another wielder, then. “He wasn’t,” Odin agreed quietly, “but he was the only one who made it through the fall. The others were scattered—to where, we don’t know.”

Xehanort nodded, but there was something pinched in his expression, a grief there that seemed much older than him.

“Are you doing alright, Xehanort?”

Xehanort’s fingers traced across the sketch. “Yeah,” he whispered, and if Odin listened carefully, he thought his voice sounded strained. “It just…reminded me of home.”

#kingdom hearts #khdr #kingdom hearts fanfic #xehanort #odin #took a while to figure out how i wanted to start this one haha #but once i figured that out it was a lot of fun!#thanks for the ask!!

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lightandfellowship · 2 months

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A detail in the Vidar and Odin cutscene that might tell us exactly when it takes place

I really should've thought about this sooner.

Before I get into the meat of this observation and what it means for the timeline, I need to explain something: the three ways KHDR handles flashbacks and flashforwards.

Flashbacks and flashforwards come in three visual styles:

(1. Timestamp at the beginning of the cutscene in a bold, black font. This indicates a flashback/flashforward that only the audience can see. And it goes without saying that this type of flashback/flashforward is used when the writers don't want any ambiguity about when the scene takes place. Example:

(2. Blurry black letterbox/vignette at the top and bottom of the screen. This indicates a memory that a character is actively recalling; both the audience and the character are "seeing" it. Here's an example from Eraqus' memory:

(3. Character's narration in the middle of the screen while the cutscene behind the text has a low-opacity black overlay on top of it. This can sometimes indicate present reality in some circumstances (such as a disembodied voice speaking or someone narrating their inner thoughts as they occur) but most of the time it indicates that the background cutscene is just a visual to go along with the character's statements, and isn't necessarily something that is actively being remembered or seen by any character in the story. An example of Xehanort retroactively narrating over a scene from the past:

In some cases the game may use a combination of any of these three to create unique effects, but that's not important for this post, the point is: if a cutscene is showing an event from the past or future, there will be a clear visual indication of that.

Why is this relevant? Do you wanna guess which one of these the Vidar and Odin cutscene initially uses?

None of them. (Further explanation under the read more).

Which under normal circumstances would indicate that the scene is taking place in the present and isn't a flashback at all (the second half of this cutscene has the flashback letterboxing, but there's a reason for that I'll explain in a bit).

For context, up until this point I was always of the belief that this scene was a flashback that took place sometime after the events of Enchanted Dominion but before the present events of KHDR, and that the lack of a timestamp was simply to avoid spoilers or to create mystery. However, after realizing how consistent the game is about visually marking flashbacks/flashforwards, I can no longer believe with any certainty that this is just "the one exception" in the entire game.

And at first glance, I'd be tempted to say that this scene taking place in the present actually makes sense. Right before this cutscene, Hermod goes looking for Odin in order to inform him about Vor's departure, but fails to locate him. If Odin is truly in the tower talking to Vidar at this very moment, then it explains why Hermod couldn't find him in his usual places, because we know from Vidar that Odin's meditation spot in the tower isn't common knowledge amongst the underclassmen (presumably).

In addition, this would finally explain (1. why Odin greets Vidar with "You've returned." and (2. why Vidar tries to say goodbye. In Episode 1, Odin claims that the upperclassmen are missing, and we just saw Vidar in Dwarf Woodlands the episode before this, so surely this moment must be Vidar returning to Scala after finding out that he's been declared missing and informing Odin that he's leaving indefinitely to pursue his goals (whatever they are).

However, I feel things start to get a little messy when you think about it harder.

I've explained in the past in this reblog chain how it seems extremely likely that the Vidar + Odin discussion in Episode 5, and the Vidar + Odin discussion in Episode 7, are not two separate instances of them talking, but rather two halves of the same discussion, and I think this still applies.

(Aside: I realize now looking back at this post that OP was super onto something here and totally right and I can't believe I didn't latch onto it sooner).

(Aside 2.0: the reason why the second half of the cutscene has flashback letterboxing while the first doesn't is because in Episode 7, Odin is actively remembering the second half of this discussion, a discussion that I'm arguing potentially took place in Episode 5. In other words, Odin is remembering Episode 5 while in Episode 7.)

If these two cutcenes are in fact the same discussion just split in half, then that means that this cutscene is the moment when Vidar first learns about True Darkness, what needs to be done about Baldr, and Kingdom Hearts.

But...wouldn't it be really weird if Vidar only learned about Kingdom Hearts in Episode 5? He, Vala, and Vali were already traveling the outside worlds and considered missing during Episodes 1-4, and at the end of Episode 4 Vidar makes a point to recruit Vor to help him and the other upperclassmen with some unspecified goal of theirs, so clearly he had SOME plan already in mind—one that he knew would require the underclassmen's assistance, at that. (Xehanort also claims that the only reason why they were running into the upperclassmen at all was because the upperclassmen were keeping tabs on the underclassmen, further suggesting that the upperclassmen already had plans for them in mind.)

At the end of Episode 4 Vidar also says that he wouldn't return to Scala until he accomplished said goal, and wouldn't talking to Odin in the tower constitute "returning to Scala"? Maybe I'm being nitpicky here and Vidar simply visiting briefly to say goodbye isn't the same thing as returning, but still. Vor is also absent from this cutscene despite being newly recruited by Vidar the episode prior, but I think you could make the argument that she was waiting somewhere else for Vidar to finish his business with Odin.

You would also have to reconcile the fact that Vala and Vali had already stolen the rose from Beast's Castle sometime before or during Episode 5. So, in a very short amount of time, Vidar would have had to discover the existence of the items of world order (which, remember, as far as we know Odin never told him about that part), discover their usefulness in finding true light and summoning Kingdom Hearts, relay this information to Vala and Vali, and then have them correctly locate and steal the rose in record time. Even if you assume that the upperclassmen were taught about the items of world order beforehand while the underclassmen weren't (due to age/schooling), this still seems very fast to me.

Remember, if the Vidar + Odin discussion does indeed happen concurrently/approximately alongside Hermod failing to find Odin, then that means that the underclassmen visit Beast's Castle and find out that the rose was stolen shortly after Odin and Vidar have their discussion at the tower. In Scala time, the upperclassmen's plans pivoting and them succesfully locating and stealing an item of world order would happen within the span of...what, hours at most? Not to mention the Beast's servants claim that the rose was stolen "a short while ago", which, while admittedly open-ended wording, seems to suggest a longer time span than a day (because otherwise wouldn't they have just said "earlier today" or "yesterday"?), and sure time flows differently in each world, but it's still pretty hard to believe that, by the time the underclassmen caught up with the upperclassmen in Beast's Castle, only maybe an hour or less had passed in Scala, but potentially several days had passed in Beast's Castle.

Not to mention this would also mean that Odin met a missing upperclassmen and (1. didn't stop him from leaving again and (2. didn't inform the underclassmen about this meeting (underclassmen who were still acting on orders to find the missing upperclassmen). Which, you know, typical secretive-ulterior-motives-Odin-stuff, so it's not really even an inconsistency or anything, but still.

This scene taking place in Episode 5...it's possible! It's certainly possible! But...I feel like this just makes things needlessly more confusing and strange. Why would you have Vidar and company initially pursuing a vague and directionless plan for the first half of the game, only to discover their real plan at the midway point? (Especially when we know that Darkness had planned for Vidar to pursue Kingdom Hearts from the very beginning? Why let Vidar meander aimlessly for who knows how long?) Why have Vidar go through the effort of recruiting Vor before he even knows what the hell he's doing? Why have Vidar talk mysteriously about his ambitions in Episode 4 like he was foreshadowing his plan when it turns out he wasn't even talking about the plan he would actually end up with?

Now, could it be a mistake/oversight that this cutscene doesn't look like a flashback? I mean, maybe? But it seems really unlikely to me that (1. this was a mistake at all considering that all the other flashbacks/flashforwards are perfectly fine including the second half of the Vidar + Odin discussion which correctly has letterboxing and (2. that the devs didn't notice it when they updated the game to version 5.0.1 and fixed a bunch of stuff. Which makes me believe that this is perfectly intentional and that this scene does in fact take place in Episode 5. But like. Why. Why would you do this to me.

#khdr #kingdom hearts dark road #kh vidar #kh odin #rambling about dim path #ch tag: vid #ch tag: odi #khdr spoilers #long post

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