Birth by Sleep The future for Terra *Spoilers*

So with the secret ending, it seems clear that Sora is now off to reunite Ven's sleeping heart with his sleeping body in the Room of Awakening. From Riku's reaction in the final scene and Kairi's seeming indication that she is the only one of the trio who will not be going on this quest, I imagine Riku will either be going with Sora or heading off on his OWN quest to fix everything that's related to HIM, namely: Terra.

Ven's problem seems pretty straightforward: heart sans body means no wakey wakey. Terra's case is more complex. His body was taken over by MX and their hearts either merged to form a new heart where they fought for control of the personality or they remained separate and still fought. At the same time some aspect of Terra (piece of heart, soul, leftover feelings, what have you) comes to inhabit his old armor creating the Lingering Sentiment. This new "Apprentice" Xehanort later became a Heartless which later lodged himself inside Riku's heart and is still said to be dormant inside him to this day. The Nobody created from Apprentice Xehanort (Xemnas) is said to have been a special Nobody along the lines of Roxas and Namine by Nomura.

The problem for Terra is this: where are his respective pieces now? We know from Xemnas' final fate that his body and likely his soul have "faded back into darkness" as he was a Nobody and this is the fate of all Nobodies excluding of course Roxas and Namine. Terra's heart is a different matter. If "Apprentice" Xehanort's had his own unique heart which was a product of MX and Terra's hearts than it would seem that both of them now reside somewhere inside Riku's heart. However, if MX and Terra remained separate entities within new Xehanort than it is possible that only MX's heart went on to create Ansem SoD the Heartless and is thus the only one inside Riku. What happened to Terra's heart if it remained separate? Well I propose that both Xemnas and Roxas MAY have had Terra and Ven's hearts within them thus making them "Special Nobodies" and Nomura puts it.

Honestly I think that the former possibility is the likelier case. The most reliable translation (in my opinion) of the little chat between Terra's heart and MX's in the secret ending has them referring to "his" heart, which I take to mean Apprentice Xehanort whom they are fighting over. Though I suppose that even if the merging possibility is the correct one their hearts could have separated in Ansem SoD and Xemnas. Either way, if Riku is to go on his own quest then it seems he's going to have to head back into to darkness to retrieve Terra's body and soul at least. But if Xemnas is a special Nobody and special Nobodies are not doomed to fade into darkness (as Roxas and Namine did not) then how do we explain Xemans' seeming destruction? What happened to Terra's heart if that is indeed what made Xemnas special. Another question to ask is how does the Lingering Sentiment fit into all this?

I'm fervently hoping that Riku gets his own scenario or atleast some kind of gameplay action in the next game because reuniting Terra seems like a much more nuanced journey with a lot more potentially interesting twists than Sora going to a bunch of Disney Worlds doing f*** all and then going to Castle Oblivion and meeting Ven. Personally I want to see the resurrection of Dark Mode under MX/Ansem SoD's influence, Riku absorbing the Lingering Sentiment thus reawakening Terra's remnant inside him and giving Riku access to armor, and finally a journey in the Dark Realm to retrieve Terra's body.

Any thoughts on the Terra's heart thing? What would you like to see out of potential Riku gameplay in the next KH game?

 

I haven't watched too many of the cutscenes yet, but I know at some point

Spoiler

Eraqus' heart ends up inside Terra (like Kairi's in Sora in KH1). Where does Eraqus' heart end up in all of this. Maybe that is the "his" heart they are competing for?

But don't take me up on that since, like I said, I haven't been through many of the cutscenes yet.

 

No Eraqus' heart being inside Terra's is the reason why MX never tried to absorb Terra's heart. MX wants nothing to do with that as its a danger to him. I'm pretty much certain they're talking about Terranort. Its clear that that is what the translator was trying to convey, but its not clear whether THAT translation is the best one out there. I think there's two different versions out there.

 

Just a quick thing, but Sora Goofy and Donald killed the xehanort heartless.

But that Heartless looks exactly like Terranort... so... who did they kill? Terra, or a random heartless?

 

they killed the heartless of terranort...

Spoiler

ansem sod was the heartless of terranort so im guessing he was made from the darkness within terra eraqus and mx

 

It is Terranort's heartless, but Sora never killed him. Seeing how Terranorts heartless was still within Riku during KH CoM and "weakened" in KH2, which gave Riku control over his powers.
We also don't know if Terranort's heartless is locked away or removed from Riku thanks to the exploding gadget from Ansem/DiZ.

I just want to know what Terranort released in the dark realm...
Terra+Eraqus hearts or MX heart (Secret ending).

It kinda seems like Terra had a plan during the Terra & MX conversation. But as MX said, plans change in the long run.

Terranorts heartless: MX lust for darkness
Terranorts nobody: MX cunningness/manipulative side

 

I honestly think that Sora doesn't know of Ven exactly yet...even though they kind of hint at it yet, he was never mentioned until now.

It would of made sense if they hinted at all that Ven+Sora=Roxas...but I haven't seen all the cutscenes yet.

I also think that Kairi will play a role next time, she is after all, a Princess of Heart. I don't think they're quite done with them.

Plus, Roxas being a Speical Nobody...what about Namine? Namine is supposed to be connect to Kairi, am I correct? But as does Roxas, they don't look like their Full counterparts Sora and Kairi.

/end of fail

 

Well, for some reason, it was always said that Ansem, Seeker of Darkness "cast aside his heart", which is not exactly what you do when you become a Heartless... This could be referencing that he cast aside instead Terra (and maybe Eraqus') heart, and corrupted his own. This would make Terra's heart wandering somewhere, or contained in an unknown location.

If you discredit that statement and say that he simply corrupted everything inside him, then fragments of Terra and Eraqus' hearts could still be living within Riku. Or... They could've gone to Kingdom Hearts, since the artificial one in The World That Never Was was up at that time and redirecting all released hearts to it. Could also be in the real Kingdom Hearts located in the Realm of Darkness since Xehanort's Heartless was bested by the light from it.

Terra's body has probably faded into nothing, since Xemnas was taken down by Sora and Riku within the Realm of Nothingness. Even if he survived, he would've been eroded down to nothing, or something like that, if he didn't leave. -shrug- I don't know how they'd be able to get his body back, but then again, Sora's body was in Roxas' possession for a year and he still ran around with no problem. That might be a plothole, though, since you can't really walk around in the KH Universe with just your Heart and Soul.

On to the next point, Terra's soul is within his armor. There's no doubt about that. I believe that his will (Soul) summoned his armor form when Xehanort's heart entered Terra's body almost as a defense mechanism against a foreign contaminant. Since his Body was compromised and his Soul ridiculously stimulated by his will to defeat Xehanort, it left its usual vessel and inhabited his armor and proceeded to beat up Xehanort, not even caring if it was his own Body and Heart in there with him.
Another bit of reasoning that helps me support the idea that his Soul inhabits his armor is the things Terra says in his confrontation with Sora. He only mutters things that he wants to carry out, like seeing Ven and Aqua again, and wondering why Sora wasn't Riku, and then that stuff about wanting to defeat Xehanort. Those were things that he wanted.

I'm not sure how anyone can reunite such a scattered and uncertain existence, but I do think the only one able to do it, if possible, is Riku. He was the one Terra chose and also possibly the only one that could communicate with him even in the slightest. To add on to that, he has a chance to contain a little bit of his heart. The bad thing that may happen is that Terra might sense the remnants of Xehanort within Riku's heart and attack him.

-shrug-

Terra's existence is really messed up.

 

That's the conclusion I came to as well. There's so much unexplained about his part of the story and how it plays out in the rest of the series!