Dear SquareEnix,
*groans*
*sobbing* This is gonna be one of those videos.
*more sobbing*
It's just one of those fandoms.
Franchises like this create fan bases that are rabid defenders of not only the works they love,
but of their communities when they see someone as an outsider weighing in on the discourse.
Combine that with what can be defined as nothing short of an absolute HELL that is making sure my understanding of the lore of this franchise is above bored,
and I'm basically guaranteeing you that I'll be upping my medication doses by the end of the day!
That being said, I'm prepared to be burned alive at the altar of the Internet,
as long as it means that I get my message across.
I have a theory
about Kingdom Hearts that I think
NOBODY has figured out yet, and I can prove this with a clever application--
Oh.
*whispers* oh crap, is...
Is Mat...?
Is...
MatPat's right behind me, isn't he?
*groans* he must have heard me say the word "theory"
Uh...
Ha-*faking enthusiasm* Hi Matt!!! :D
This isn't one of those
"MINECRAFT" situations where I claim I'm gonna be talking about TELEPORTATION
but just talk about the lore for 10 minutes.
*stutters* It's really about science, I swear.
Just maybe, m-maybe
about science and just like, the *ᵗᶦⁿᶦᵉˢᵗ* bit...
...of lore...just a--
Wait! Odi--
diddj--
DID YOU HEAR THAAAT!?
Scott Cawthon just updated his website with random pages from the Voynich manuscript hidden in Base15 audio waveforms!
I wonder what that's about!
*orchestral tense music begins*
*phew*...
...I think that bought us some time.
Anyway, after hours and hours of pouring over timelines,
mathematics, picking apart dialogue, watching probably three hours worth of lore breakdowns on YouTube
and my own observations from having played the games for years,
I can finally present to you the secret that everybody missed...
The main antagonist!
the BIGGEST *suspense?*
SECRET VILLIAN *suspense*
...IN THE ENTIRE GAME! *more suspense!*
is *ULTIMATE SUSPENSE*
...
Mickey Mouse.
*Laughs semi-maniacally*
Naw I'm just kidding (XD)
Naw, man- I WISH I could prove that.
It'd make some of the best clickbait thumbnails EVER!
But no, Mickey as a character is so annoyingly and unambiguously GOOD
that I could never pull that off without some SERIOUS mental gymnastics.
BUT I did figure out something even more interesting.
The main villain, the BIG BAD, of not only the main installments,
but the entire Kingdom Hearts Universe is...
this guy.
Keyblade Master:
Xenahort (Zee-nah-hort)?
(Zeh-nah-hort)?
(Zee-hah-nort)?
Keyblade Master Xehanort (Zee-hah-nort)
(Zeh-hah-nort)?
F-RRRRRRR
Now that may not seem like the most mind-blowing conclusion ever, since,
...like the games straight-up TELL you that he's the big villain in the modern era,
but once I'm done with you,
you will understand that his reach is even further than the games let on,
and his fingers are in more pies than you previously thought possible.
Even if you count his, like, 13 alternate identities.
This guy is responsible for every.
Single.
Bad thing in the entire Kingdom Hearts universe.
In order to understand why, we're gonna have to first talk about the lore.
Not all of it, unfortunately!
Because as Frustrated Jacob, Suggestive Gaming and Podcast Now have proven,
that is definitely not within the scope of a video that's this short.
But all logical conclusions require their premises, and for us to figure this problem out
we're gonna have to give you all the pieces of the puzzle that you'll need.
And in order to save time, I'm gonna blast through this as fast as I can.
A hundred years ago and some change before Kingdom Hearts 1, there was this massive violent clash between a bunch of people called the Keyblade War.
Everyone was fighting for control of this Mega-Ultra-Super Keyblade called the "X-Blade",
which was capable of unlocking all the potential of the Kingdom Hearts, which is a source of all light and goodness and blah blah blah
Anyway, this fight was pretty awful and ended up shattering the X-Blade into 20 pieces:
13 dark and 7 light and scattering them to the wind!
Before this Keyblade War, there was this dude known as the "Master Of Masters" and he's SUPER mysterious...
He had the powers of precognition and knew that this Keyblade War was gonna happen
so he wrote down a bunch of prophecies and sent 5 of his apprentices out to recruit people to survive the aftermath of the Keyblade War.
Of course, ironically, the people that these five apprentices recruited actually ended up making up the bulk of the army
that started the Keyblade War in the first place.
One apprentice, who dressed in the same Hot Topic outfit as the Master Of Masters, was instead gifted with this keyblade.
Oh, right. I forgot to mention that everyone fights with keyblades
because the X-Blade is a keyblade and it's... I don't know, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?
Anyway, this keyblade right here, which supposedly had the Master's EYE implanted in it was so that he could watch the events of the Keyblade War as they unfold.
Hot Topic Boy was also given a box which he was told to *NEVER OPEN*!
This guy was also told to stay out of the upcoming war.
Capiche?
Okay, so, like, fast forward past the Keyblade War and the X-Blade has shattered into 20 pieces. All right? The Kingdom Hearts: it's GONE!
Hope of life to exist: GONE!
But some folks survived the war and had the LIGHT IN TEIR HEART
and somehow this saved the world, but instead of saving it as ONE world, it's now split off into different worlds?
Like all sorts of worlds.
Most of them are populated by Disney characters, and the rest of populated with Final Fantasy characters.
Why are there Disney characters and Final Fantasy characters on these planets?
TO SELL GAMES, OF COURSE!!
Fast-forward again 100 years into the future, now we're on a planet where the guy Xehanort (Zee-ah-nort),
uh, Ze-ha...(give it up Austin)
You know what? I'm just gonna call him "Evil Moby".
Anyway, Evil Moby is visited by a hooded figure which is actually Evil Moby from the future
Well, actually it's like one of three versions of him from the future, but you know what, it's -- that's not actually relevant, but...
GOD, THIS LORE IS SO FREAKIN' CONVOLUTED!!!
Future Evil Moby tells Young Evil Moby that he's gonna leave his crappy world and do some stuff so that Future Evil Moby can exist.
He also, and this is *KEY*, gives Young Evil Moby the power to time-travel. (here's where it gets crazy hhh)
Young Evil Moby leaves, does his evil stuff, travels back in time, back to his island, loses his memories, and leaves the island again.
He studies to become a keyblade master, inherits the same keyblade that the Master Of Masters sent Hot Topic Boy out into the world with
AND in this time learns about the Keyblade War and becomes obsessed with it and...
-WOW I AM NOT DONE YET!
*TAKE A BREATHER*
Evil Moby decides that he wants to re-forage the X-Blade to gain access to the Kingdom Hearts in order to...
uh, I think he needs another Keyblade War?
It's a little unclear. It doesn't totally matter because it gets thwarted left and right and never accomplishes his goals.
What you need to retain from this breakdown is three key things:
1) Evil Moby is obsessed with the Keyblade War and the X-Blade to the point where he keeps trying to incite the Keyblade War again.
2) Evil Moby is the same keyblade the Master Of Masters sent Hot Topic Boy out with, and
3) Evil Moby can time-travel.
Alright so,
with all this in mind I can prove conclusively that the Master Of Masters,
the man who wrote these prophecies that sent his apprentices out to gather armies
that ended up fighting in the Keyblade War and destroying the X-blade and sending Hot Topic Boy out to give his keyblade to Evil Moby
after the entire world was destroyed IS, himself,
Master Xehanort a.k.a. Evil Moby.
This fan theory isn't actually all that revolutionary.
Using a combination of looking at the keyblades that alternate versions of Evil Moby made, that have the same eye
along with several literary clues using the names of the Foretellers, which are all each one of the seven deadly sins, save for the Master's,
which is theorized to be the name on the box that he gave Hot Topic Boy,
"Superior", Which is PRIDE and also one of the alternate names of one of his other alternate forms
plus some dialogue that seems to imply that he's seen a Keyblade War before
plus looking at different color themes in the various games... blah blah blah...
but while these theories and Youtubers have done some AMAZING work,
I can say conclusively
that they are dead wrong,
and it comes down to one thing: Time. You see all the theories I've seen up until now that postulate that the Master of Masters is Evil
Moby, aka Master Xehanort, aka Master of Evil Mobys, say that this is the
original Evil Moby, that the Master of Masters Evil
Moby was born before the Keyblade war, and for some reason triggered it to start, but this my friends, is not the case. It cannot
be the case. Master of Evil Mobys isn't Evil Moby born 100+ years before the events of Kingdom Hearts,
Master of Evil Mobys is actually future Evil Moby who has gone back in
time to see the Keyblade war for himself and also ensure that it happens.
But how?
HOW DOES HE DO IT?!
Well, aside from the fact that it's already been shown that he can time travel and interact with past versions of himself,
we have to ask, is time travel even possible?
The answer to how Evil Moby is able to time travel lies with my old bud,
Albert Einstein.
You know, look, I know applying the laws of general and special relativity to a game that claims that the source of all light and universe comes from
t literal giant heartless guy, I-I-I know, okay,
I know but trust me, the secret to explaining how this is possible lies within the workings of Einstein and
quantum mechanics. The logic holds and is important,
I PROMISE.
okay.
So devotees will remember that according to special relativity,
the closer to the speed of light you travel, the faster time moves around you, essentially allowing near infinite time travel into the future.
However, if you were to somehow reach the speed of light and then move faster, you could travel back in time. Unfortunately,
this is impossible. It takes quite literally, infinite energy to travel at the speed of light. Let's take a look at this.
This is the mass-energy equivalence
formula, and with it we can prove easily that time travel into the past by going faster than the speed of light is
impossible, because this formula can be rearranged to look like this. The specific part that's most important
is this velocity variable. The closer this gets to the speed of light, the closer
this product gets to zero, which makes this experimentally proven theory totally crap its pants.
So it doesn't matter how fast Evil Moby runs at the Disney Olympics,
he ain't getting back in time this way, but there are more problems with time travel than just this, specifically the grandfather paradox,
which can be simplified in this easy way. If I use a time machine and go back in time to kill my
grandfather before he met my grandmother, what happens? My parents never got made,
so therefore I never got made, so how could I have possibly existed to go back in time to kill my grandfather?
But if I didn't go back in time to kill my grandfather,
that means I couldn't have gone back in time and killed him, which means I definitely do exist and
will definitely be able to go back in time after all and kill him, which means I couldn't exist...
All right, let's just abandon that Austin to struggle with going over the logic of that paradox for all time.
anyway,
It's generally believed in most circles of relativity scientists that travel to the past is ultimately impossible because it would screw up
continuity,
which is what this clone version of me is gonna die of starvation
trying to explain. While special relativity doesn't allow for time travel, a combination of general relativity,
the field of relativity that deals with spacetime and gravity, and quantum mechanics can solve all these problems
Conclusively. While we already concluded that Evil Moby isn't capable of traveling by going faster than the speed of light,
tt is possible that he's using another device: closed timelike curves.
Closed timelike curves were first theorized and later proven by Austrian
mathematician Kurt Godel who, no joke, gave these solutions to Albert Einstein as a gift for his 70th birthday.
Kind of a crap gift, turns out, because it made Einstein doubt everything he'd poured his life into and hinged his career on.
THANKS BUDDY. WHAT A PAL.
Anyway, the way closed timelike curves work is essentially, you take a super massive object like a black hole, and you rotate it really,
Really, fast, which we already know is a pretty common behavior of black holes. The extreme effects that such massive objects have on local spacetime
creates eddies that kind of resemble whirlpools in local spacetime and can
essentially connect spacetime from the present to the spacetime of the past. We're pretty certain
that these are possible, even if they're only capable of sending a single photon back in time, as opposed to, say, an entire Evil Moby. We
gotta figure out solutions to things like the grandfather paradox if time travel is possible, and thankfully we
Have. MIT professor and theoretical quantum mechanists Dr. Seth
Lloyd has proposed that while the rules of relativity don't offer a solution to the various continuity
Paradoxes, quantum mechanics does, and it all boils down to the main thrust of how quantum mechanics works.
Particles are inherently unpredictable. As a result,
We don't know for certain where they are at any given point in time.
What we do know is that they are likely to have specific
properties based on factors that we know, but there's always a chance that we're wrong.
So if we have a single proton that we're gonna track, we know based on our knowledge that it's most likely in this range of
Space here, and the further away you get from this predicted space, the chance of the proton being there continues to drop exponentially.
However, the likelihood of it being in a vastly different place never quite drops to zero.
There's always a chance that the proton will be an entire universe away from where we predict
it should be when we actually measure it.
This is the principle of quantum
mechanics that saves us when we go back in time. If you travel back in time and try to disrupt events that would disturb
continuity to the point where it would alter you and your motivations for traveling back in time, the
likelihood that you'll be able to successfully act on those impulse reduces improbability.
It's hard to wrap your head around, but the basic idea is that the more you attempt to disrupt a self-consistent universe,
the less likely you'll be able to succeed.
So basically, you can't kill your grandfather. Everything you presume to be free will is
just you playing into the way things were supposed to be, like Harry Potter looking for his dad and
realizing that it was him all along. The universe has to be self-consistent,
which brings us back to Evil Moby.
We know that Evil Moby of the future can't have been the original Master of Masters surviving the Keyblade war. He
Specifically references desperately wanting to see one, and all of his plans are centered around making another one happen,
but we know for a fact that the Master of Masters
knows what will happen in the future because he wrote it all down.
We also know that he created this weird keyblade to give his apprentice so he can "see what happens in the future",
but if he already knows what will happen in the future,
what's he need the sword for? And while we don't know for certain that the laws of relativity
are the same in the Kingdom Hearts, the logic of time travel paradoxes are solid, but since we've already
resolved those paradoxes,
we know that it's not only possible from a logical standpoint that Evil Moby went back in time to become the Master of Masters,
it's highly likely that he did because he's been trying for his entire life to start a Keyblade war and
fails, every single time, but you know when we know a Keyblade war happened? A hundred
freaking years ago, and he knows he can't go back in time to screw things up because screwing things up is impossible.
It's why the Master of Masters is always in such a good mood! After all this struggling, all this work,
he knows, finally!, that one of his plans will finally work.
He'll finally get to see a
Keyblade war happen because he's gonna make it happen, and he knows he can make it happen because it already happened.
He caused the whole thing,
and that's the only reason he sends Hot Topic Boy off with the weird sword and makes it sound all important.
It's not important that he's seeing into the future with the sword,
it's just important that the Keyblade exists so that he, but he's Evil Moby in the future, can have it.
It's all cyclical, baby. A game was rigged from the start.
The only impact we know this will have on the Kingdom Hearts franchise is
A.) Evil Moby is gonna keep failing until FINALLY the Master of Evil Mobys steps forward and is like, hey,
I know it's gonna happen because I lived it and then he does his thing. The main villain is the same guy
you know it is, but he's not been revealed yet. Was this confusing to you?
Well, welcome to my FREAKIN life for the past two weeks!
SCREW THIS LORE
I LOVE IT, BUT SCREW IT!
I don't know what's in the box.
I don't know whether Hot Topic Boy is also Evil Moby, and this is some sort of Robert A Heinlein by the
bootstraps, but with Disney characters and seeing kids
I am my own grandpa thing where he's interacting with himself to send himself ON a mission that he remembers going on,
although that wouldn't make any sense from a lore perspective, but NOTHING has made sense in this entire thing,
BUT I ALSO UNDERSTAND ALL OF IT AT THE SAME TIME,
AND OH MY GOD I HATE MYSELF SO MUCH!
SINCERELY, AUSTIN *sobbing*
*Austin sobbing because he knows Mickey Mouse is the mastermind behind all this*
(Hey, you should subscribe to The Game Theorists if you haven't already.)
*music intensifies*
whoa, you're still here?