Organization XIII, They're the Bad Guys, Right?

Villains and antagonists, sure some are sympathetic and who wouldn't want a heart, but as a group these guys went around trying to create both powerful heartless and nobodies and whenever a heart was freed they would capture it and add it to their Kingdom Hearts. Sure some were decent people and a lot where duped but that does not excuse the actions they took. Their actions were self motivated and selfish and they didn't care about the consequences to others, look at Beast.

 

DDD spoilers below.

To answer this question, we have to first understand a few things about the Organization as a whole, and understand what is really meant by "bad guys".

To begin, what is a bad guy? Typically, this is very much a matter of perspective, because good and bad are relative. For the purposes of this situation, let us use a skin-deep metaphor and claim that a bad guy is someone who is opposed to the actions of the protagonist. This ignores the moral definitions of "bad" that shall be expanded upon in a few moments.

Are the Organization members antagonists, then?
As a whole, that would certainly seem obvious, but this is mostly because us, as the player, has been explicitly treated the perspective of situations where we view the Organization as a whole in an antagonistic light (and yes, I believe even Days has instances of this, from the machinations of getting rid of certain characters and the like). Not to say that this excuses anything inherently deplorable of them, but this implies that in these stories, both the moral scale of "good" and "bad", along with the idea of "protagonists" and "antagonists", are fairly relative.

Now, I certainly do not enjoy thinking of ethical behavior as black and white and I understand that everybody in this thread has enough world-weariness to share the sentiment well enough, so we can all establish that, even in fictional antagonists, there is a sense of grey morality in their actions. While we can attribute this to what they did or did not do, it seems much more evident when we come to understand that the actual motives of the Organization's entire existence are not explicitly limited to getting their hearts back! In fact, that was never Xemnas/Xehanort/whatever you wish to call him's intention in the first place! If I recall correctly, the actual purpose was to serve as shells or vessels for the thirteen incarnations of Xehanort, which accordingly failed, as we learn. What does this mean? It simply shows how fragmented and misdirected the Organization was. The morality in their existence was grey due to the very fact that their existence was connected to multiple layers of rationalization, some of which they were unaware of themselves.

From this point on, further understanding the motive behind our little Organization depends on whether or not you consider all extraneous media canon. In the games, the player sees that certain members of the Organization pretend to have emotions to fill the void where their hearts should be, while print and other sources expands this further by claiming that they do possess emotions, but their lack of hearts make them extremely insecure.

This is where something special comes into place.
Again, as revealed in Dream Drop Distance:

Nobodies can eventually regrow their hearts.

What does this mean? It means a few things.
It means that the members were lied to, proving that they were not working in tandem much at all, and it also justifies the complete fragmentation of the Organization in the end. As a few posts stated before, these members never really seemed to work together. There was constant betrayal and weakness within the ranks, and this led to the eventual collapse of the Organization itself; not because of Sora's efforts, but their own insecurities as a result of their individual differences combined with their lack of hearts. It was stated earlier that much of their plans seemed whimsical and fragmentary. They were individuals in the end, acting on their own beliefs as how they tried to deal with their lack of existence based on themselves (not to mention Xehanort's own influence).

Almost uncaring about what could happen. To themselves, to others. Why should they care? They are too insecure.
Why are they too insecure? Well, when you have no heart, and you feel that you are never going to get it back (which turns out to be a lie), then you grasp to simply keep your existence in check. Accordingly, the entire motif of the Nobodies in Kingdom Hearts II revolved around the idea of existence, or lack thereof. In the Kingdom Hearts world, your heart is the stamp of what makes you. Your identity and existence. So what are you then without an identity but something or someone whose existence is unable to be verified? Do you actually exist? Do you want to exist?

Some did. Some did not. Some did not even care. This existential crisis is entirely human, and it is what led to the downfall of the Organization.

They did many terrible things as a group, and none of their personal interests can justify them. At the same time, the story of the Organization has come to play out less like a gang of competent villains than it has turned into a tragedy. Some wanted to fight, some did not. Some genuinely believed in the cause, and some distrusted the others' goals. All of them had lost their hearts, and all of them as individuals tried to deal with this. All of them were tricked, and this led to all of their downfalls.

With the sole exception of Xehanort. And of course, the pawns he was able to explicitly control. I would not be surprised if his influence was what cultivated much of their negative actions. We have seen his persuasion enough through Birth By Sleep?

Are the Organization XIII bad guys?
They are antagonists. It is too complicated to explicitly label themselves as bad.
But from the beginning, they seemed doomed to a tragic conclusion.

 

The use of bad guy was more to reference the game than anything, but even then, while grey morality is definitely a thing in real life, in fiction it is often drawn far more linearly. KH is a very definite story of good versus evil, light versus dark. We have some ambiguities, like Riku, but even then Riku consistently fights darkness and at the end of nearly every game he becomes further removed from it. In KH evil is very much a concept, comes with the Disney I suppose, but the antagonists of KH are pretty much all pursuing universally 'bad' things but any societal standard: murder, self gain at the detriment of others, planetary annihilation and corruption of individuals to suit another's ends. Much like how Hitler's actions can be justified with perspective, but pretty much everybody will say he was 'bad'

what do you mean 'even' Days? Days if perfectly in-keeping with the rest of the games the Organization are present in, and if anything reveal new negative aspects of the members

It is explicitly stated to be their goal though, many characters reiterate this. Xehanort didn't intend it, but he lied to them in order to get what he wanted. He ultimately chose morally lacking people who spun off into their own evil plans too, though. They're all inherently bad things though, multiple shades of black really. Essentially killing 12 people so you can becomes SUPER IMMORTAL. Going around killing people so you can use their empty bodies as soldiers, while gathering people's hearts just so you can get your own back. And overthrowing and killing members of their own organization to rewrite a young boy's memories with a girl they are holding captive in order to use him as a mind controlled slave to kill and overthrow the organization they're a part of. Of all the layers, I'm not seeing any white, and it doesn't fall into grey by any normal societal standards. A person can rationalize something something but their actions will ultimately be viewed as negative by nearly anybody bu themselves, and I think that's a key point. Grey morality comes from the combination of white and black morality, hence its name. Doing something good to accomplish something bad, and vice versa, that's grey morality. Now, you could view your selfish actions as white morality if you completely lacked empathy, which it just so happens to be a trait we THOUGHT Nobodies had, so from that angle it could work. It really becomes a matter of whether you think their sole opinion matter enough for that.

The issue really is that we can no longer really say that they were acting, since they could very well be experiencing the growth of a new heart instead. Even then, the theoretical void here is a motive, not a justification. Much like how a serial killer might suffer from a mental illness or have a troubled past. It affects sympathy, but not pure morality.

I've said it many times before, the Organization's major flaw is that they suffer from chronic villainy. If they had simply done nothing they would have succeeded. Xehanort would have his vessels, discovered Kingdom Hearts, caused a Keyblade War, and so on. But they didn't, they felt a desperate NEED to go out of their way to cause trouble. They visited worlds causing chaos, they lured Sora to Castle Oblivion. They CONSTANTLY picked fights with Sora. They CLONED Sora, they enlisted Sora'sNobody into their ransk and then tried to get their Sora Clone and him to fight to the death because they felt liked they only needed ONE Sora clone. They also cloned Riku, artificially lengthened Sora's sleeping process even though ultimately their plans relied on Sora. And that's jsut their plans as a GROUP. Then we have Saix and Axel working together, except Saix is actually a Xehanort, and Xigbar and Xehanort have their own plan, and then Marluxia and Larxene to top it off, never mind the other Castle Oblvion members taking other extraneous actions
You may call it a manifestation of their anxiety or doubt, but I call t poor writing. there's no legitimate justification given for this chronic villainy.

I'm not sure why you're claiming insecurity would manifest universally as APATHY of all things. If anything this would probably make at least SOME of them care too much, desperate for any recognition so they could feel more secure.
But beyond that, and this is something ill defined in the games. How far did this lack of emotion go? If you truly couldn't feel, you wouldn't be having a crisis of any sort, would you? Without emotion your response to everything should be apathy, there shouldn't be frustration, confusion, indignation, what have you.

I've already said above what I think led to their downfall

Wait, I thought it was their existential crisis that led to their downfalls? Also, competent might be a bit of stretch here, has the Organization actually succeeded in ANYTHING?
I also have a hard time treating anything in KH like a tragedy when death is so impermanent. I mean, oh no. The Organization died. I mean, they all came back right away and apparently they've been absolved of all their sins now. Where's the tragedy without the permanence? Is that tragedy that they didn't succeed in their plans to cause mayhem and destruction/planetary destruction? I mean they even got their main goal dealt with; they got their hearts back.

I'm not sure what you're trying to imply by this. That Xehanort persuaded everyone in the Org to be horribly incompetent and corrupt? That he set up all the random evil plans that went nowhere?

How are they complex? What have they done to deserve being called anything beyond one dimensional villains? What are their humanizing elements? What actions have they taken to warrant being treated as anything beyond a plot device so bad stuff can happen for the heroes of the story?

And again, WHAT tragic conclusion? That they all got to come back with their hearts even after failing, and not have to deal with the repercussions of their actions?

But the writing is mostly bad. There are some above avergae moments. CoM, Re:Coded, but as a whole the script lets down a lot of KH. It's a well intentioned series, not a well written one.
Like BBS. We have Terra going through a variety of worlds learning valuable lessons and never really brushing with the darkness. His apparently HUGE moral event horizons are when he scars a guy in self defense in order to save his kidnapped elder, and when he gets angry about a guy trying to kill his only friends. This is apparently enough to render him unredeemably corrupt by darkness. Ventus' story completely loses any direction halfway through. He just randomly visits Disney worlds. Aqua literally just spends her time fixing all the problems Terra and Ven end up making. None of these characters are developed not anything resembling humans. They have no small moments. Most notably nothing even shows us why Terra or Ven are friends with Aqua at all.
The whole story is full of contrived moments where characters have to be ridiculously vague in order to move the plot along.
On a smaller level there are just errors like Ventus never finding out the monsters he encounters are called Unversed, and then just plain poorly written lines. Like "The friendship between boys. It's almost enough to make me feel jealous"

Even at its best KH scripts are still a random mess of anime cliches and poorly realized Disney fanservice

Really to best enjoy KH you have to look beyond the writing or voice acting and try to discern what the INTENT of the scenario was. When you make assumptions and connect the dots, KH can become a lot more enjoyable in terms of story. Sometimes this brilliance almost shines through, too, like I think Jesse McCartney's performances as Roxas and Ventus have worked wonders for the characters.

And that, is why we totally owned you lamers

 

Then we both see Kingdom Hearts characters a lot differently. I look at them more as archetype characters that represent different aspects of humanity, rather than yes, as you said, being extremely complex characters. But I really enjoy that about Kingdom Hearts, to be honest. The story as it is portrayed outwardly isn't nearly as complex as what's really going on, and we have the Ansem Reports to thank for that, but I find that aspect of the franchise to be enthralling. For the people who truly are invested, there's information and elements of the plot that only reveal themselves clearly through research. That urges me to find out more about the series and look into things, and I feel like that's the aim of Kingdom Hearts. It's almost like a Disney movie in that way, as in it's simple and outwardly emotional on the outside, and it does take looking deeper to find the humanity of the plot. That way, I feel like I can enjoy the Kingdom Hearts franchise on multiple different levels. And to argue against you, but to also agree, I did find Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep to have great writing. Of course I'm referring to the plot, not the translated dialogue that's never as good when it's dubbed in English, so I suggest looking into the subbed videos, as the dialogue is far more intelligent. But I saw Terra has the archetype character that he is, a young man struggling to deal with his inward emotions. Although his approach to darkness wasn't as good as Riku's, I still saw that he was a guy trying to do right but ended up being tricked into doing wrong and that everyone goes through that at one point or another, good intentions that end badly, so I loved seeing Terra's character and I didn't think it needed extreme development because his character already accomplished what it needed to, in my opinion. I think you saying that Ventus was just traveling to random worlds is flawed in the sense that Ventus was explicitly searching for Terra and sort of running away from Aqua. Ventus was obviously the innocent archetype character that belonged to the light, but had to struggle with the dark side of himself (Vanitas), and again I think that metaphorically we can all relate. Then yeah maybe Aqua sucked but I felt like she wasn't even needed in the story to be honest. Or, at least she didn't need to be expanded upon or have the attempt thereof.
But I think you're forgetting that one of the biggest attractions to the Kingdom Hearts franchise is its accessibility to all ages. So of course you're going to need a story that's more simple on the surface, like Disney films, but have complex subplots and elements dedicated fans have the liberty to look into, under the surface. I think the accessibility of Kingdom Hearts is one of the things that makes it incredible, and an incredible story, so I don't agree with you in the idea that the story is only good when you look into it, because even as a child I loved Kingdom Hearts more than any other game and it was because of how much I related to Sora and co. I don't think you're giving the franchise enough credit in that respect.

 

KH has a complex plot on the surface. It's actually brain dead simple, it's just dense. You can't explain it easily, but that doesn't mean it has any depth. But it scares off newcomers because KH is notorious for having an impenetrable plot.
And here's the thing. We were talking about WRITING. That's different from plot. KH is largely poorly written. KH MEANS well, but it fails on execution on multiple levels.
The plot only being revealed through RESEARCH is also an absolutely terrible thing. That's work, that's a terrible. A story shouldn't require the viewer actively RESEARCH the story jsut to know what's going on. Never mind that research mostly comes from major plot details never being released outside of Japan.
But yeah, plot is separate from writing. A plot is neither good nor bad, because a plot is nothing without execution. BBS' plot could be done well, done poorly, done for laughs, done in a more kid friendly way. The possibilities and intent don't matter, what counts is the end result. I mean heck, you're telling me that translated dialog is never as good... so I should look up... translated dialog... what does that prove?
Terra, as a character, does the opposite of what people tell him in the most ham fisted ways possible. He loses faith in his supposed life-long friends at the drop of a hat, and commits nary a single evil deed throughout the entire game... and this is somehow enough for him to fall to the dark side by the end. It's contrived because they already had a conclusion, and ddin't bother making any level of natural progression towards it.
Ventus IS wandering aimlessly. He's not running from Aqua: SHE leaves HIM. Terra just told him that he can't come with him either. At that point in the story Ven has been abandoned by both of his friends... so he just sort of randomly goes to Disney worlds with the vague pretense of finding friends. He has no reason or motive for the second half of the game. Aqua's motivation is ambiguous at best as well, considering her orders are to bring Ventus home and to look into the darkness with Terra, and she has the opportunity to do both and does neither. This is especially notable with Ven, where she's explicitly told to bring Ven home... and on both opportunities instead just tells him to go home and assumes he'll do it.
I think comparing KH to a Disney movie is just silly. The Disney movies are functional, they have a proper set up and pay off. Their stories aren't complex or complicated, they're just effective. They're simple plots lucky enough to be given good writers and solid voice actors.
The story isn't good if you look into it. The story isn't good. That's it. It has a few shining moments, and a LOT of bad. It's not accessible, it's dense and impenetrable. The characters are one note at best bar perhaps Sora. The writing is mostly bad, the scenarios are mostly poorly thought out, the voice acting is from a lot of talented people who seem to phone it in quite often. The Disney elements aren't treated with any respect and the original stuff is just a bunch of random anime cliches glued together

 

If you feel this negatively about the series, why the hell are you on a forum dedicated to it? It's obvious the site isn't as active as it used to be, so I've seen your posts from time to time and honestly it seems like you rarely have anything good to say about the series or things in general. Of course you're going to pass me saying this off as, Oh this kid lost the argument so now he's attacking me personally, but that's not the case at all. We both obviously disagree with each other and we're not going to find a common ground on this so you can think whatever you want of me but seriously man, you have the tendency to be way too critical of the series and the other members of the site. I know pointing out you calling us lamers is ridiculous, considering how unoffensive the word is itself, but the intent was that because we had a different opinion than you, you think yourself above us. And the reason for that is because you have rarely anything positive to say about the subject you're discussing. It's easy to criticize something rather than defend it, which superficially makes you look smarter in the process, and I feel like you take that route way too often. You don't need to research the plot to have any idea of what's going on either, so stop twisting my words around. The plot of the franchise is presented on a surface level, it's just that the Ansem reports dive into subjects far more, which is incredibly interesting to those who want to take the time to get behind the deeper story. That's what I meant by research. Details of the story that aren't vital to know to enjoy it, but are added bonuses to those who are willing to take their time to read the reports, and honestly if you don't have time to read in-game content, and you complain about the obscurity of the franchise, then you expect your hand to be held way too much. No, I'm not talking about you in particular because I'm sure you've read the reports yourself, I'm saying in general 'newcomers' like you said afraid to approach the series because of its complexity? I feel like that's idiotic. Kingdom Hearts II did a fine job of explaining what happened in Kingdom Hearts and Chain of Memories. Dream Drop Distance does a great job of piecing everything together as well. I think the opposition is to the amount of unnumbered titles and how they're on so many different consoles, and that scares people off. But the handheld titles are being produced because of the development of Final Fantasy XV and Nomura wants to dedicate his time to Kingdom Hearts III, which is important. I think the franchise is complex, but not confusing at all, and if people feel that way then just play the numbered titles and let them use exposition to clear things up easily. I find it incredibly lazy to oppose a franchise simply because one feels like it's going to take some thought to fully understand it. And it's not like the handheld games, aside from BBS, DDD, and Chain of Memories, are even somewhat crucial to understand the plot in full. 358/2 Days and Coded, well maybe even Chain of Memories because of Kingdom Hearts II's exposition, are all games admittedly produced to pass the time, and a person shouldn't feel like the franchise is a mess because of all these different pieces. The Halo franchise is really similar to Kingdom Hearts in the sense that terminals are the equivalent of Ansem reports, and no one criticizes the complexity of Halo's story, and to understand it all there are books, animes, short series, all different forms of media to explain the plot of a game franchise. So I feel like it's unfair to criticize Kingdom Hearts for the same thing when the director of the series is extremely busy working on something else. And the writing of the series, I don't even feel like arguing with you about that anymore because no matter what you're going to put it down. I think the writing of a game is successful if it can evoke genuine emotion in the player, and every Kingdom Hearts game I've played has done that in one way or another. But seriously dude, stop being so narcissistic with your opinions and expressing them as facts, and work more on trying to find good aspects of the series I think you like?

 

I'm not going to pass this off as a personal attack (though it definitely is)
I'm going to pass it off as "oh hey, ANOTHER kid who deals in absolutes who has somehow deluded themsleves into thinking that anybody who is critical of something has no right to be on a website dedicated to it. Who deals in such an insane degree of absolutes that having valid criticism for a game SOMEHOW means I hate it.
And that somehow relates to me trying to appear smarter than I am
Now ignoring all the random, unwarranted antagonism, let's look at your points.
It's not easier to defend something than it is to form a critique of something. I could hype things up all day, it's easy. It's almost a hobby, I go around getting people to make terrible purchasing decisions by minimizing something's flaws and maximizing its strengths. I don't bother with that on a fan-site. That's boring. Why should I bother spending time trying tos ell \KH fans on KH? They've already bought into it.
Don't need to research? But so many vital plot details are hidden in the Japan-only Ultimanias.
You feel people are idiotic for thinking that entering a seven part franchise over a decade old is too dense to enter? Just fully explaining Roxas to a newcomer would take a few minutes, and probably lead into extra tangents about the true nature of Xehanort and Organization XIII. It's a ridiculously dense story to enter, and you have the GALL to call people idiots for being wary of getting into it?
The... Halo franchise. The one EVERYBODY knows for its multiplayer? The one where NOBODY talks about the plot? That's a vital difference right there, Halo holds its shooting front and centre, KH wears its story on the front. When I hear people talk about the plot of Halo, it inevitable leads to jokes about how nobody cares enough about the story to bother reading the books or anything.

And that's about it for valid opinions, the rest is just you spitting bile

 

Xemnas, Xigbar, Larxene, and Marluxia evil the rest are just grade A jerks trying to retake what they lost so I honestly pity them due to Xemnas (or maybe Xigbar) literally taking Saix from Axel (we all know Saix wasn't always a homosidal maniac) and making everyone except those in his conspiricy believe they don't have hearts and need Kingdom Hearts to bring them back. Frankly the only really evil things they did were to their own members and they only took control of the heartless during the second half of KHII before that they sent Roxas and Xion to just kill the heartless actually doing the universe a service in exchange for bring us the gift of 13 Xehanorts and there is also the fact that Xemnas threaten's them with the turn you into the dusk thing if you fail your mission. They are only evil because they believed they have no emotions ... without emotions we would be just as evil as the organization minus the cool super powers.

 

Negative critique does not mean people dislike a game or game series. In fact, quite the contrary. People will often, more than not, heavily criticize something, such as a movie, they think sucks because they like it, first of all, and because they really do see the potential in it and actually enjoy it in general.