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lightandfellowship · 1 year

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Examining Vor's motivations

(Major KHDR spoilers)

So if you’ve experienced KHDR's story, then you’re probably aware of how...confusing and seemingly contradictory Vor’s motivations are, at least on an initial viewing. Because of this lack of clarity surrounding her circumstances and inner thoughts, it can be a little difficult to get a solid grasp on her character. However, I think her motivations, feelings, and choices start to make a lot more sense once you analyze her cutscenes closely. The key to understanding her, I think, is realizing how human her emotions are. And human emotions are oftentimes a complex web of contradictory ideas that can't always be easily defined, explained, or reconciled.

In light of this, I decided to engage in some character analysis where I examine her story more in-depth, going over some scenes from the game and trying to break down her motivations into something a bit more easily understood. (Also be forewarned that this post is fairly long and image heavy, so you might want to open it in a new tab or something.)

So, Episodes 1-2 aren’t very useful for analyzing Vor’s character, one because not much happens in those episodes, and two because those episodes utilize the “pick your party member” system where the characters are sometimes interchangable without many significant alterations of dialog (sometimes no alterations at all.) Technically Episode 3 uses the same system, but at least here the dialog changes are substantial enough to make a bit of a difference. So let’s just start with the end of Episode 2 and go from there.

(FYI, I wanted to use even more images in this post, but I was running into some issues, so I decided to reduce the number of them. I apologize if the lack of an image in certain places creates any confusion.)

Episode 2/3

The end of Episode 2 has Vor noticing that Xehanort and Eraqus are scheming a plan together, and she's suspicious/curious enough to (rather forcefully) insert herself into the group so that she can get all the juicy details. That is if you choose to take her with you as your third party member, which...why wouldn’t you? It’s clearly what the story wants you to do.

But just for the sake of thoroughness, know that if you don't pick her, she'll dramatically pout with a "Aww..." and look really sad while everyone else smiles. It's played for laughs but she honestly looks pretty upset about it.

Anyway, when you give in to her request, she’s very pleased. She jumps up and down excitedly and says that Xehanort and Eraqus won’t regret bringing her along (even though Eraqus looks pretty unhappy about it). Even as early as this moment you can see that Vor likes being included in things and getting the opportunity to prove her usefulness/worth to her friends. As the episode goes on it becomes even more clear:

She gets upset when Eraqus still refuses to let her in on the plan despite allowing her to tag along, throwing a tantrum and smacking him repeatedly.

"Don't look so surprised. You made it pretty obvious." She reveals that she's way more observant than they give her credit for, correctly guessing that their plan involves the Queen of Hearts and her darkness.

"...so you were going to leave me to do your own research!"

She gets upset again when she finally learns the details of their plan and questions why they were leaving her out of it/refusing to let her help them.

And finally when Xehanort and Eraqus explain that they didn’t want to involve anyone else for fear of their classmates getting hurt, Vor ignores their concerns and confidently declares that they should go visit the queen together. Xehanort and Eraqus are, in a way, trying to exclude her from their plans with the excuse that she might come to harm, but she won't let them leave her behind.

Again, just to reiterate: it’s clear that she loves her friends a lot, wants to be included in everything they do, wants to feel like a useful, strong, reliable member of the team, and something that will be stated more directly later: she wants to feel like she belongs somewhere.

Episode 4

Where all the important stuff actually happens, but mostly at the end.

But some details of minor relevance before we get to that: Vor is the first one to rush off to help the seven dwarves when Xehanort, Eraqus, and Vor overhear that a cave-in happened in a mine. Makes sense; she’s naturally curious and likes to be helpful.

After they help the dwarves reunite, Vor makes a comment about how the seven dwarves remind her of her and her six classmates. Her friends and her place among them is fresh on her mind, for reasons that aren't known to the player yet but get revealed soon afterwards.

She also looks pretty pleased with herself to have a solution to Xehanort and Eraqus’ problem, when they say that tracking down Darkness isn't going to be easy. Vor corrects them, and reveals that she discovered an all-knowing Mirror that could potentially solve all of their problems. Again, this ties in to her desire to be a helpful member of the team.

But anyway, on to the actual meat of this whole thing.

Xehanort, Eraqus, and Vor go to speak to the Magic Mirror. The Queen interrupts their discussion, throws a potion at the mirror, and the group fights it. After it's defeated Vidar shows up, and compels Vor to reveal A Secret.

Here we learn through a flashback that when Vor first discovered the mirror, she discretely asked it a question of her own without telling her friends that she did this. She asked it if she would ever become a Keyblade Master.

A single sentence question, but it implies a lot about Vor. The fact that she’s asking this at all means that she isn’t confident in her abilities or her future. Even the use of the word "ever" suggests a level of desperation to her query.

So here's the thing: when Eraqus approaches the mirror, his first instinct is to ask a silly question like “How can I beat Xehanort at chess?”, and Xehanort makes no attempt to ask the mirror a personal question at all (though knowing him he would probably ask about his dream friends like MX does later in life). I imagine even if Hermod, Urd, and Bragi had the opportunity to ask the mirror a question, it wouldn’t be about the possibility of them failing to become a Keyblade Master, it would be about something else that bothers them. So I think this anxiety about failure might be unique to Vor specifically.

But what makes her think that she might not become a Keyblade Master? Some possibilities: maybe she feels like she’s falling behind on her studies compared to her friends. Maybe she feels like she’s become complacent in her comfort. Or maybe she feels like people underestimate her abilities because of her appearance and stature (Xehanort and Eraqus were shocked at her picking up that boulder, after all.) Vor is very observant and has a good intuition (even her name comes from a Norse goddess with this exact reputation) so if people were looking down on her, I think she would notice quickly. And this might be why she’s so eager/persistent to be included in activities and allowed to be useful. She feels like she has to prove herself constantly in order to be on the same level as her friends.

Anyway. The mirror gives its answer but it wasn’t the reassurance she was hoping for. “With friends thy heart doth lie, content and free of woe / In comfort stagnant calm, forward thou fail to go.” Let’s break this down line by line before we get into her reaction.

“With friends thy heart doth lie”. She spends a lot of time with her friends, yes, but also the focus of her heart, the focus of her affections, is directed at her friends (wouldn’t surprise me if they’re the most important people in the world to her).

“Content and free of woe”. She has a pretty good life with her friends, for the most part. “Content” doesn’t necessarily equate to an overabundance of happiness though, the connotation of it is like...satisfactory enough. Right? “I’m content with something” vs. “I’m overjoyed with something”. Things could...probably be better? Maybe underneath the surface Vor can tell that something is wrong, but since things are Good Enough, she doesn’t try to think about it too hard, y’know? Don’t fix what isn’t broken. This Is Fine. If I try to improve things I might accidentally make things worse instead.

“In comfort stagnant calm”. Comfort. Something that eases the pain. Friends who make you forget about the pain. Stagnant. Unchanging, unmoving, lifeless or unable to support life effectively (like stagnant water), unable to progress or develop or improve. Your friends are moving forward and bursting with potential and you are not. Calm. Stillness. Peace. But it’s unexciting, unrewarding, you’re not being challenged by anything or anyone and it isn’t conducive to improvement or learning.

“Forward thou fail to go.” Pretty open-ended wording, but since Vor was specifically asking about becoming a Keyblade Master, that must be the subject matter the mirror was answering about. For whatever reason being with her friends is going to prevent her from becoming a master. I kinda have a theory that the mirror was basically saying (in his usual cryptic unhelpful way) “if you stay with your friends you won’t become a Keyblade Master because you will DIE” but who knows.

Vor takes this. Not well. In fact, she’s very angry. She runs up to the mirror, gets right up in its face and yells at it, and then raises both of her arms up into the air like she wants to break it. We've seen this before where she’ll smack Eraqus over and over again (despite her official bio saying she shies away from battle, she’s surprisingly prone to some mild violence) but it almost seems like she’s ready to kill this thing, lmao.

She does say something interesting though. First she yells “That’s not true!” and then clarifies “I want to become a Keyblade Master as much as everyone else!”

Is that true? Is she just as motivated as everyone else? Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll get to that.

But the Mirror’s matter-of-fact statement about being literally incapable of lying makes her calm down real quick with a quiet "Oh."

We flashfoward back to the present. Vor explains her feelings in more detail.

She says that recently, she started to realize how she really feels. I think the moment she’s referring to is actually shown in the game: it’s the flashback that plays at the end of this scene where the lower classmen discuss their reasons for wanting to become Keyblade Masters. So let’s go out of order a little bit and talk about that.

Vor asks all her friends why they want to become Keyblade Masters. It’s hard to say exactly why she brings this up, whether she had a specific reason or if it was just idle chatter. Everyone gives their reasons and at the end Eraqus returns the question to Vor. Why do you want to become a Keyblade Master, Vor? And wow Vor practically goes through the five stages of grief within the span of five seconds when asked this.

First she’s a little taken aback, like she didn’t have an answer prepared (because she didn’t). Then she looks confused, like she’s NEVER BEFORE asked herself this question and is suddenly realizing that her brain can’t find motivation dot exe. Then she looks HORRIFIED, the true implications of what this means dawning on her. And then realizing that she needs to put back on her cheerful mask before her friends start to suspect something, she pulls herself together enough to come up with an excuse for why she can’t answer. She makes a joke about how wishes won’t come true if you say them out loud so HAH I tricked all of you! Now NONE of you will become Keyblade Masters!

So. Okay. That was a lot of emotions she just went through in a short period of time. But what does it all mean? I think it means that she never once stopped to consider why she wanted to become a Keyblade Master, because she was just following in her friends’ footsteps. She wants to go wherever her friends go, that’s all. Like a baby duck following a bunch of other baby ducks. Oh, all of my friends are joining the Keyblade wielder program? That’s gonna take up a lot of their time and I won’t get to spend as much time with them as a result...wait, what if I join too? Then I get to hang out with them during school and outside of school, and we get to go to class together and do activites together and go to lunch together and I get to belong somewhere and and and! Oh, why would I want to become a Keyblade Master? Shhhh don’t ask me that la la la la I can’t hear you!!!

What’s interesting though is that despite seemingly coming to realize that she might not actually have her own personal motivations for becoming a Keyblade Master, she still asks the mirror if she'll ever become one as if she still wants to. Maybe it’s not a matter of needing to find a different path in life, maybe she just needs to find a better reason for wanting to become a Keyblade Master? Or maybe she just wants to prove herself capable and strong enough to accomplish this feat? Or maybe she was in denial? I guess denial would make the most sense actually since she reacted pretty strongly to the mirror's implication that she wasn’t as motivated as her friends, even though she’s probably already realized this about herself at this point.

Her lack of a definite reason isn’t the only thing she realizes, though. She also realizes that even if she finds her true motivation, even if she successfully becomes a Keyblade Master, one of her other desires will inevitably escape from her grasp: her desire to be with her friends. Because for whatever reason, the path of the Keyblade Master requires them to go on their own separate paths. And even in the scenario where Vor fails to become a Master, she has no reason to believe that her friends will fail alongside her, meaning that they would all eventually leave her to go do their own thing anyway.

So, you can see where all the contradictory feelings start to converge. She wants to become a Keyblade Master. She doesn’t want to become a Keyblade Master. Actually, maybe she does want to become a Keyblade Master? But in the very least she wants to do it for a better reason than “because her friends are doing it”. But wait, if she and her friends become Keyblade Masters, then they’ll go their separate ways and they won’t be together anymore. Vor doesn’t think she can handle that. But what could she possibly do to prevent that? She can’t ask her friends to give up on their dreams just to make her happy. So is separation inevitable, then? In that case, how can she reduce the pain of that separation? The longer she stays with her friends, the more she’ll grow to love them, and the harder the separation will be. But what if she left now? Wouldn’t that be easier in the long run? Plus, the mirror said that staying with her friends will prevent her from growing, so isn't leaving undeniably a good thing?

And so she leaves.

It seems that Vor’s departure from the group kills two birds with one stone: leaving her comfortable bubble allows her to escape the stagnation that’s been plaguing her development, and it also allows her to preemptively nip in the bud the pain that’s only going to grow more and more unbearable over time. She’s essentially ripping the bandaid off in one fell swoop rather than peeling it back slowly and painfully.

As for Vidar...at least initially, Vor’s decison to help him probably had nothing to do with wanting to help him and everything to do with just needing a good excuse to finally bite the bullet. He gave her an out and she took it. After all, Vidar gave her NO EXPLANATION whatsoever on what his plans were. How could she possibly judge whether or not he was worth helping with zero information to go off of? However, once she finds out that Vidar is trying to do something “noble” and “good” (defeat darkness) I imagine it wasn’t too hard to get her on board. Though I’d be curious to know what she thought about the whole “purging the world” thing. Unless he just kept that part under wraps and was vague about what “defeating darkness” actually entailed.

The next time we see Vor after her departure is in the lamp room in Agrabah. She doesn’t say much in this scene other than reiterating that she wants to help Vidar. However, there are two moments during this scene where I think we can get a glimpse at what she's really thinking. The first:

Here we see Hermod angrily denouncing Vidar's plan, saying that what they're doing is wrong. And Vor looks pretty startled and upset about that. She's probably not too comfortable knowing that her friends don't approve of what she's doing.

Second, is when Vidar says this:

And now look at how her expression changes with each line of dialog.

She starts off sad/worried, then becomes a little more despondent, and then gets really upset (eyes shut tight).

Vidar talks about losing sight of what's truly important, and when Xehanort asks what that important thing is, Vidar basically says "my friends, and us fighting by each other's side."

Interesting thing to say in front of someone who you helped convince to leave her friends, and therefore is no longer fighting by their side...

You could argue that Vor is only making these faces because she's sad/upset about what happened to the upperclassmen, but it's so much more interesting to me to think that in this moment, she's starting to seriously doubt her decision to leave.

One other thing. At the end of this scene when she’s about to leave, there’s a pretty sad moment between her and Eraqus. Vor looks at Eraqus, who is GLARING DAGGERS at her. She's upset about it for a split second before her expression becomes determined instead (sucking it up, trying to harden her resolve). She walks through the portal and leaves, and Eraqus, perhaps realizing that his anger isn’t actually making him feel any better, drops his glare and goes back to being sad instead. But here's the thing: she never sees him drop his anger. She leaves thinking that Eraqus hates her right now. Why is that important? Because it’s the last interaction they have before they meet up again during Vor’s death scene. Oh. Great. :’)

Speaking of her death scene. Yeah that’s the next time we see her. Or, we see her talking to Baldr a couple of times before this, but her death scene is the next relevant topic.

Vor apologies, saying she messed up big time. Eraqus incorrectly assumes she's talking about...her death? Not being able to stop Baldr? Something like that. But she clarifies she's not talking about now, she's talking about her decision to leave her friends behind. Leaving them was a mistake. A mistake that, in her eyes, was her fault. Since she's dying she doesn't really delve into why it was a mistake or how she came to that realization. Instead she simply states "This is where I belong."

Whatever happened on her journey with Vidar, she must have concluded that leaving her friends early on in order to minimize her pain later wasn't the right call. Why? Because her true place of belonging was with them, regardless of the inevitable pain that may result from that.

Perhaps she thinks that leaving them was a moment of weakness, that she should have been stronger, strong enough to endure the pain. Perhaps she thinks that her friends deserved better, didn't deserve to be "selfishly" abandoned by her. Perhaps she realized that Vidar's plan was wrong and she shouldn't have left her friends to join him. Or perhaps she simply realized that being separated from them actually caused her more pain in the long run, which would kinda defeat the point of her decision to leave them in the first place. Either way, she ultimately changes her mind about leaving her friends, seemingly re-finding her purpose in a life she already had before but now has tragically lost.

Without further information about Vor's journey, it's hard to say if she ever got closure to...anything. Does she still want to be a Keyblade Master, or no? Is she still afraid of change/not changing? What does her decision to return to her friends mean for her character? Because like, it's entirely possible that her choice to return was a form of character regression, where she realized that she couldn't handle being disconnected from comfort and familiarity. Or maybe it wasn't! Maybe she realized that she could fight against her stagnation and her tendency to follow others without having to abandon everyone in her life to accomplish that, and we just don't get to see that because she died prematurely. With so little information to go off of, I think it ultimately comes down to personal interpretation. What flavor of tragedy do you want her death to be? What kind of resolution do you want for her character arc (positive or negative)? Is the tragedy of her death that she crawled back to her bubble and remained stagnant? Or is it that she died right as she achieved enlightenment about her true desires and her place in the world, meaning she didn't get to reap the benefits of her character development?

Anyway, that's about everything I have to say about Vor for now. If you have any thoughts or feedback, feel free to send them my way in the form of tags, reblogs, replies, or asks. I'd be curious to hear other people's interpretations of Vor's character and story. Especially if I missed any important details that you think are essential to understanding her.

Thanks for reading!

#khdr #kingdom hearts dark road #kingdom hearts #kh dark road #kh vor #vor kh #rambling about kh #rambling about dim path #ch tag: vo #ch tag: era #ch tag: vid #ch tag: xeh #khdr spoilers #long post

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