#if you're seeing this before i post the other pieces. no u didn't shhh

[roxtron]

Replaying through KH BBS again and naturally that brings me to the inevitable essay about Terra. I will forever be annoyed at people who treat him like an idiot for being manipulated by Xehanort, or literally just victim blame him and act like everything is his fault. So.. I wanted to write a bit of an analysis on who’s actually at fault here, going through notable cutscenes/reports in order to help show my points.

Starting off at the beginning of the game, we all know how it goes. Terra fails the Mark of Mastery exam, supposedly due to showing a glimpse of darkness. But I think it’s notable he never actually used darkness in that fight. Sure, you could see the particles around his arm during that cutscene, but he was able to get it to fade away before continuing to fight back. The darkness was there, but he WAS keeping it in check, he was fighting against it. He could’ve given into it to win the fight, as he does later in the game, but he didn’t. It was under control at this point, even if it emerged for a moment, he was still able to control himself.

Yet Eraqus finds this as enough of a reason to justify him failing the test, claiming he failed to keep the darkness in check. I already explained why I disagree with that idea but if you’ve played the games you’ll know Xehanort does kind of have a point about Eraqus, he’s too stuck in his belief that light is pure good and darkness is pure evil, he doesn’t understand there can be balance, shown with Riku later in the series.

Which leads me to the scene after that failure, Terra says he needs to be alone, and while he is, Xehanort shows up to talk to him about what just happened with Eraqus.

“Why, you could train with him forever, and still..”

“You’d never be a Master in his eyes.”

He directly tells him what he thinks. If there’s even a glimpse of darkness in Terra, Eraqus is never going to see him as worthy. It’s never going to be enough. Xehanort tries to keep this message more subtle here than when he repeats it later, but he’s still getting across the same point. Eraqus is wrong. I’m sure that’d give Terra some doubt of trust in him, the only other person that could reassure him he is worthy is the one talking to him now.

While there is reason to doubt him as well, Eraqus has sort of undone that. Ventus already seems cautious around Xehanort due to his past, (although I find that a bit odd, since Ventus hasn’t regained those memories yet. Maybe he just gets the sense it’s familiar? Regardless–) to my memory Aqua doesn’t seem to show any obvious signs of distrust until after Xehanort revealed his nature. I’d have to rewatch her cutscenes to be sure, but either way, Aqua and Terra don’t have the history Ventus does, they don’t have any view of Xehanort besides what Eraqus told them. And what did Eraqus tell them?

He told them Xehanort was his good friend, a guest, another Keyblade Master. It seems he’s only given the man praise, with little to no acknowledgement of what he’s really capable of. 

“Considering how we had parted ways, I expected friction– but if anything, Eraqus seemed delighted to see me again.” (There’s more to the quote but the rest isn’t relevant to my point so I’m not gonna type it out.) - Xehanort’s Report 11.

Based on this report, it seems like Eraqus may not have had much doubt about Xehanort at the time either. A lot of the cutscenes referring to Xehanort before the events of the Mark of Mastery exam seem to indicate he convinced Eraqus he’d changed. While Eraqus may have been manipulated by Xehanort as well because of this.. I don’t think it excuses the role Eraqus plays in allowing Terra to fall into the same trap. Xehanort’s probably around his 80’s-90’s at this point, depending on the timeline.

(I’d have to double check but I’m too lazy to do it as it doesn’t really matter, even if 90 is older than 80 it’s really not enough of a difference that it’d change the point I’m trying to make.)

Eraqus seems to be around the same age as Xehanort, considering they’re both in the same class during the events of Dark Road, so obviously Eraqus is an adult, and has been for a long fucking time now. He’s old enough to have learned, and it was his responsibility to warn them about Xehanort, which he failed to do. Even if he fully believed Xehanort, he knew Xehanort’s past. He could’ve said something like “yeah, this is my good old friend, he’s just here for the exam, if he tries to talk to you about darkness don’t listen to him.” lol. Okay, jokes aside though, he could’ve given a vague warning like that, he can still tell them Xehanort is untrustworthy without going through everything he’s done. But nope, he decided to tell them only good things, what a great idea. Anyway, getting back to the cutscene I was talking about before.. 

“You’re fine as you are.”

“Darkness cannot be destroyed, it can only be channeled.”

He tells Terra what helps him feel better while also furthering his own plan. That he isn’t a failure, he’s fine the way he is. That darkness within him isn’t a flaw, it’s just something he needs to learn how to control. It doesn’t seem to sink in yet, but it’s still planting the seeds for Terra to follow that thought process later down the line.

Anyway, moving forward onto someone who is DEFINITELY at fault here, Yen Sid. When Terra goes to this world, they have the following conversation. I’ve cut out a few lines of dialogue because I want to focus on specific lines. 

“I thought it best to seek the counsel of one wiser than myself.” The next lines mention Yen Sid no longer being a Keyblade Master, implying what Terra meant by this is that he trusted Yen Sid because of that title, even if it is now former. It further feeds into why Terra trusted Xehanort, he clearly looked up to other Keyblade Masters, and obviously wanted to become one. Since Terra feels the need to introduce his name here, it doesn’t seem like they’ve ever met, meaning he trusts Yen Sid solely because of that title and connection to Eraqus. If that’s enough to earn Terra’s trust, it makes sense that’d be his reasoning for trusting Xehanort too, right? 

“And, like you, he is eager to use his Keyblade to set things right.” (referring to Mickey here but the way he’s directly compared to Terra makes this line accurate to both, so I’m using it.) I don’t have too much to say about this, I just find it interesting for what it says about his character, especially the word choice.. 

And oh look, someone else who’s aware of Xehanort’s past, and what does he do? He tells Terra to look for him. What the hell. Eraqus, you could at least give some benefit of the doubt for being manipulated due to their history as friends, but what kind of excuse can you give for Yen Sid? He doesn’t seem to have been directly spoken to at all, so I doubt Xehanort manipulated him too, and even if he did, how? There doesn’t seem to be any friendly history Xehanort could exploit to get him to feel sympathy or anything like that. Like I mentioned before with Eraqus, he should’ve said something. He knows Xehanort is up to no good, and he purposefully withholds that information. And if you think I’m joking, he literally says this in the next scene after Terra leaves the room. 

“I had hoped, Xehanort, your heart would no longer lead you astray.” So he knows. He knows something’s wrong. He knows Xehanort’s history. Yet he actively chose to let everything unfold, he could’ve made some effort to prevent this, to warn Terra, and he didn’t. He just goes “damn Xehanort I can’t believe you’re still doing evil shit, that’s crazy.” to himself. Like, what?? Why would you wait until Terra leaves to say this? You’re not even gonna whisper it in front of him or anything? You didn’t find this relevant information for him to know? You see no problems with what’s happening here??? Anyway, moving on to the next scene.. Xehanort tells Terra his version of events, what he did to Ventus.  (Ugh.. Unfortunately tumblr's image limit means I have to split this into pieces, so.. (Part 1/5) I'll just add tags on the reblog with all the pieces so I can keep it 1 post.)

#if you're seeing this before i post the other pieces. no u didn't shhh #if you're following me and you don't know anything about kh.. i'm sorry and this probably isn't going to make any sense to you so #you're welcome to scroll <3