Birth by Sleep Some questions I had that this game didn't answer -Spoilers-

Since Birth by Sleep is a prequel to the original Kingdom Hearts, I was hoping that this game would answer a lot of questions that I had about the Kingdom Hearts franchise but it didn’t do much of a good job. I believe that this game is great none the less but I was really looking forward to having a lot of my questions answered. After I completed the game and unlocked the secret ending, I was able to make a list of things that this game didn’t actually explain.

1. How does Mickey end up in the Realm of Darkness and get the golden keyblade?
2. How do Maleficent and Stitch end up in Hollow Bastion/Radient Garden?
3.

Spoiler

If Aqua is stuck in the Realm of Darkness, then why doesn’t Sora, Riku, or Mickey run into her during their time in that realm?

4. How does Kairi end up on Destiny Islands?
5.

Spoiler

Why does Vanitas have the same face as Sora?

6. Why does Roxas look like Ventus?
7.

Spoiler

How does Xehanort/Terra form Organazation XIII and banish Ansem into the Realm of Nothingness?

8.

Spoiler

How does Xehanort/Terra create the artificial heartless and nobodies?

9.

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What exactly are the origins of the heartless in general? Apparently the pure bloods already existed during Birth by Sleep. Are they creatures of darkness formed after the separation of worlds after the events of the Keyblade War?

10. How do the heartless escape from the Realm of Darkness and come to the Realm of Light?
11. How do Snow White, Cinderella, and Princess Aura get kidnapped by Maleficent?
12. How do Organization Members IX-XII join the Organization?
13.

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How does the Organization take control of Castle Oblivion? Doesn’t Master Eraqus state that anyone who steps foot in the castle will be lost to oblivion?

14.

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Does the Organization know of Ventus’s existence in Castle Oblivion? Shouldn’t Sora’s heart have reacted to Ventus in KH CoM? Is this Why Roxas’s head started to throb when he entered Castle Oblivion in 358/2 Days? Its been 11 years since the events of Birth by Sleep, so is Ventus’s body able to magically resist the affects of aging in Castle Oblivion? Or has it rotted away by now?

15. What exactly is the “Room of Awakening” that is mentioned in KH2FM?
16.

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Since the reason that Sora’s nobody looks completely different than him is due to Ventus merging with his heart thus making Roxas take the form of Ventus. Then shouldn’t there have been a girl who looked like Naminé that merged with Kairi’s heart in order for her nobody to have blonde hair during the events of BBS?

17.

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Why does Xigbar see Xion as Ventus in 358/2 Days, if anything, shouldn’t he have saw Xion as Terra or Aqua? After all, they fight against Briag where Ventus and Briag only share a few lines of dialog in BBS.

18. How does Triton know about the legend of the keyblade bringing nothing but destruction and the melding of other worlds in KH1?
19. What exactly does “Birth by Sleep” mean anyway?


I know that some of these questions have already been answered in the Ansem reports, but I was hoping to see these events in action during cutscenes in Birth by Sleep. And I know that the explanation of some of these questions aren’t really necessary for plot’s sake but they are still concepts that I would like to know about. Do you think Square may answer some of these questions in the Final Mix?

Spoiler

And I know that the whole Vanitas and Ventus looking like Sora and Roxas is believed to be due to Ventus merging with Sora’s heart, but I don’t think that this was actually stated in Birth by Sleep. Correct me if I’m wrong but from what I’ve seen, that was just something inferred by the fan base.

But if that is the case, then I have another question:

20.

Spoiler

If the reason that Vanitas looks like Sora is due to Ventus merging with Sora's heart, then what did Vanitas look like before Ventus merged with Sora's heart when Vanitas was created in the Badlands?

So how did you guys feel about Birth by Sleep? Are there any questions that you still have that wasn’t answered in Birth by Sleep?

Edit: I also forgot to point out two plot holes:
Since Donald and Goofy meet Ventus during the events of BBS. Why didn't Ventus come to their minds when they saw the picture of Roxas and his friends in Twilight Town in KH2 after Maleficent helps them out in Hallow Bastion.

And if this game takes place 10 years in the past then technically Huey, Dewey, and Louie probably shouldn't be born yet.

Yeah I know, those plot holes shouldn't be taken seriously, but I thought they would be funny to point out.^^

 

1. This happened during the start of KH1, IIRC. Mickey went to find the reason why all these worlds were disappearing and found and entered a Corridor of Darkness in Traverse Town that led to the Realm of Darkness. He found the Kingdom Key D there sometime later.

Spoiler

This is found out in Coded, I believe.

2. Maleficent simply found Hollow Bastion in its ruined state and made it her base of operations. And Stitch probably never returned to Deep Space due to the hyperdrive blasting him off somewhere in BBS and his world most likely gone in KH1. Since he flew off somewhere, he might've escaped the mass Heartless invasion.

3. The Realm of Darkness is HUGE. Also with the fact that Aqua wanders aimlessly there, Sora, Riku and Mickey don't spend much time there to actually run into her. Aqua only met Ansem the Wise in Blank Points by sheer luck. Sora and Riku are considered to be on the shore across from them at the end of KH2.

4. Terra-Xehanort sent her there. It was in stated in one of his new reports in KH1FM.

5. Something to do with Ven's heart getting healed by Sora's when Sora was born. If it's not this, then the question should really be: Why does Sora have the same face as Vanitas?

6. Roxas looks like Ven because when Sora lost his heart, either Ven's physical traits or his memories of them passed onto Roxas and giving him that shape instead of Sora's.

7. Ansem the Wise simply got in their way of their research. They thought he was a fool for commanding them to end it and so they banished him there, though it might've been their Nobodies that did that, I don't recall. Org. XIII was simply formed to both continue the research and to gain their hearts back.

8. You find his Heartless machine that he mentioned in his reports in one of the portals in End of the World. There's no such thing as artificial Nobodies, unless you count Xion, but she was made by Vexen in his Replica project that included the Riku Replica IIRC.

9. Heartless are the hearts of people who succumbed to the darkness in their hearts and are essentially darkness themselves. Anyone with darkness in their hearts can become Heartless if they allow themselves to let it take them. Combined with below, that's why they're in such low number at the time of BBS.

10. They don't, unless summoned by a very powerful entity, someone with control over darkness, someone with a strong darkness in their hearts, or simply whoever is the strongest at the moment. Maleficent, Ansem the Wise's apprentices, Master Xehanort, Riku for a short time, Saix about once or twice, etc.

11. Their worlds collapsed from the Heartless invasions, mainly caused by Maleficent. She most likely captured them during those invasions.

12. They simply found them. Xigbar's seen talking to Zexion about finding Marluxia and about finding new recruits in KH2FM.

13. "Lost in oblivion" simply means that whoever enters will not find anything (i.e. the Room of Awakening) and will become lost since every room looks exactly the same, unless it's Aqua of course. The Organization only found it because it is in the Realm of In-between, uninhabited, and Xemnas had a feeling that he would find his other friend (Ven) there.

14. Sora, Riku, Donald, Goofy, Mickey, Ansem the Wise, and the Organization can be seen as intruders of the castle and therefore would be "lost in oblivion". Sora at this time also wasn't fully complete as Roxas hasn't returned to him yet and therefore didn't have a full heart (and that BBS wasn't in development at the time). Ven wouldn't rot because he's not dead. There's also no concept of death in KH, so there's always a way to revive someone, somehow. Roxas' head started to hurt partly because of that and because he was in very close proximity to Sora, since he wasn't moved to the Mansion yet IIRC.

15. The room where Ven currently is inside Castle Oblivion.

16. Namine, for the most part, LOOKS like Kairi. The blonde hair may be because it was adopted from Ven maybe? Sora's, Ven's, and Kairi's hearts were bonded together before he released them and created the two Nobodies.

17. Xion, being Roxas' replica, has no physical relation to Terra or Aqua. Ven would be the only other choice besides Roxas.

18. Either the legend was told long before BBS, or the story of BBS was somehow passed from world to world.

19. "Birth by Sleep" refers to Blank Points in which Sora will save everyone who had their lives ruined by Ansem the Wise and Xehanort and are waiting for him to do so.

Spoiler

(Specifically Axel, Roxas, Xion, Ven, Terra, Aqua, and Namine as stated in Coded's ending and hinted in Blank Points).

20. Going by what was stated in the question, he didn't have a face until Ven's heart was mended by Sora's, hence the mask.

Regarding the questions that could be answered by the Ansem Reports, it wouldn't make much sense if they were shown in cutscenes in BBS as it happened within the 10 year gap between it and KH1 but leaning more towards KH1. Aqua and Ven are MIA and Terra-Xehanort remembers nothing about his life and being a Keyblade Master. Braig might as well have pulled the strings.

 

Wow, I'm sure it took you awhile to answer all my questions. Thanks for taking the time to do so.^^

Sorry, that was a typo, I meant Nobodies in general. The Organization had control of all the Nobodies so I was thinking that when people become heartless they often turn into the articificial heartless like the citizen in Traverse Town who becomes a soldier heartless and then a Nobody is created. So in a way, I was thinking that the Organization had something to do with the creation of Nobodies. But Sora became a pure blood heartless in Hollow Bastion and created Roxas and Namine, so that eliminates my theory.

Also, would Vanitas be considered a heartless? He's the darkside of Ventus's heart. Maybe Ven could be considered something as the opposite of a heartless since he has no darkness in his heart after his split with Vanitas.

Do you also think Ventus, Roxas, and Sora can exist together at the same time? Yeah, Ventus and Roxas are supposed to be a part of Sora's heart now but maybe after Sora saves them they can exist together peacefully, maybe?

Also what exactly were the Unversed. Before BBS came out, I was expecting the Unversed to have something to do with the creation of the heartless, or be creatures that mutate into the heartless. I was pretty dissapointed when I found out that they were just monsters of negative emotion that somehow managed to pop out of Vanitas. When Vanitas was destroyed along with the X-blade, do you believe that was the end of the Unversed aswell. Vanitas and the X-blade are a part of Ven and Ven still lives within Sora so do you think we might see the Unversed again in the future? (Apparently we are gonna see the Nobodies again in Kingdom Hearts 3D so I don't see why we can't see the Unversed again)

Edit: Oh, I also forgot, another thing that I thought BBS lacked in was character development for Isa and Lea. We only got one cutscene with them through out the entire game where they share some dialog with Ven and then we see them get thrown out in the castle during the credits. I would have liked to see why they wanted to get into the Radiant Garden Castle so badly and how two rascals like them managed to become Ansem's apprentices. (Yes I know this must have occured within the 10 year gap but I still want to know how Ansem comes to except them and why Isa and Lea want to get in the castle so badly.) I also wonder why does Xemnas put Saix as second in command, shouldn't that title go to Xigbar? He's the one who was working with Xehanort (along with Vanitas) through out BBS and he is the second member of the Organization afterall. Could there have been something that happened with the 10 year gap that caused Xehanort/Terra to favor Isa over Briag as a partner?

BBS also didn't explain how Radiant Garden was later given the name Hollow Bastion. Was that a name that Terra/Xehanort or Maleficent gave the world after Ansem's apprentices becames Nobodies and left the world in ruin?