KH: Birth By Sleep Trailer Speculation
Square-Enix showed a secret trailer for the upcoming Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep at a private showing recently. However, this was in Japan, and the awesome power of Japanese cell phones cannot be so easily foiled. This is the sort of thing that we like to share and discuss with you.
First of all, that blond-haired kid is not Roxas. You may be excused for thinking so, since they look exactly the same, but that's someone named Ven; Birth By Sleep takes place about ten years before Kingdom Hearts 1.
Now, Squeenix is not exactly known for the variety and originality of its character designs (*cough cough Reno and Axel cough*), but this is ridiculous. Obviously, there is some connection between Sora/Roxas and Ven, some relationship that caused Sora's Nobody to look exactly like someone else. (For that matter, Sora resembles Roxas (and thus Ven) pretty well himself.) We don't have a solid theory on this, but here's an overview of the possibilities.
“Ven is Sora's dad.”
The idea that some or all of the BBS trio are parents of some or all of the Destiny Islands trio keeps popping up on forums. I don't like it much. First of all, the KH series has very carefully kept everyone's parents off-screen, literally and figuratively. It would be sloppy storytelling to suddenly make them vital to the plot. Second, if there were any badass adult keybladers on Destiny Islands at the beginning of KH 1, they should have shown up during the storm. (And they were badass - if you look at the gameplay shots from this trailer, it's clear that keyblade fighting was a more advanced art back then.) And third, the timing is wrong, especially if those two kids Terra watches on the beach really are Sora and Riku. Ven and Aqua are just flat-out too young; Terra could have fathered one of them at age sixteen or so, but the way he acts toward Ven… doesn't give me the impression of a family man, let's say.
“Somehow, Ven is Sora's keyblade.”
I came up with this one myself, but I don't like it either. It's too weird. It came out of wondering who the disembodied voice in Sora and Roxas' stained-glass visions is. But while that voice might still be Ven, or someone else from BBS, the idea that keyblades are people seems a little macabre for this series.
“Ven is the key to Kingdom Hearts.”
This one is Angelo's theory. In the movie at the end of Final Mix+, Master Xehanort (the old guy, not the one we know as Xehanort, who at this point is called Terra) grabs Ven, freezes him and drops him off a cliff, and then immediately uses a ball of energy to open Kingdom Hearts. The idea is that the ball of energy was taken out of Ven. This holds together, especially since we just found out that Ven's existence is somehow strange and maybe undesirable, but it doesn't explain how Ven is connected to Sora.
“Ven is the sleeper that led to Sora's birth.”
This is different from the first theory - it's saying that Sora was born not by the usual squishy process, but by some sort of Disney heart magic. Ven, either because of Master Xehanort's actions or his unusual state of being or both, had his three parts (body, heart, soul) split up. He is forced into some sort of “sleep” (as a popsicle, maybe?) and one, some, or all of his parts end up in chibi-Sora. This is a little vague, but I haven't found any holes in it yet, so it's my current working theory.
So, we don't know what's up with Ven and Roxas - what do we know?
Years before KH 1, keyblades were not quite as unknown and mythical as they are in the games we've played. There was a continuous tradition of keyblade fighting, with masters and apprentices. (Remember the Enigmatic Soldier that kicked your ass in Final Mix +? That was Terra. The new trailer implies he's not quite at master level. Think about that.) There are two keyblade masters mentioned in the info we have on BBS. One is Xehanort (the old one) and the other is probably Yen Sid — we know he taught Mickey, and every time Mickey appears in BBS trailers he's holding Starseeker.
Speaking of which. Terra, the artist formerly known as Xehanort, Ansem the Dumb, and Xemnas are all the same person, or parts of one. Apparently, this person is in the habit of stealing everyone's name. He was a keyblade apprentice under Master Xehanort who, for the best of reasons, started using the power of darkness. We don't know what happened next, and we've gotten hints in KH 2 that darkness isn't necessarily bad, but when he showed up again he was an amnesiac traitor in Radiant Garden.
There were no Heartless in the time of Birth By Sleep. As far as we know, Heartless were invented/discovered by Xehanort — er, Ansem — er… damn it. The Radiant Garden apprentices. Anyway, the monsters in BBS are a different sort of enemy. The 13 points, hints hidden in the secret ending to KH 1, give us the name Endless. Heartless are corrupted hearts, and Nobodies are abandoned bodies, so Endless are probably some sort of fallen souls.
Birth By Sleep is going to be one big foreshadow for Kingdom Hearts 3. (It hasn't been announced yet, but there's going to be a KH 3, probably released for both PS 3 and Wii.) The other two portable games in development, 358/2 Days and Coded, are basically filling in gaps in the existing plot, but BBS is a new story. Just as Chain of Memories was the setup for KH 2, BBS is the setup for KH 3. The names Ven, Aqua, and Terra (wind, water, and earth in Latin) are an obvious parallel to Sora, Kairi, and Riku (sky, sea, and land in Japanese.) The parallels go past names - the Ven/Roxas connection, the parallels in Terra and Riku both using the darkness to save their friends, etc. Birth By Sleep is the history that will be repeated in KH 3 - or at least, the history that Mickey is afraid will repeat.
Lastly, practical matters. Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep will be released for the PSP. It will have three playable characters with different abilities and stories - Terra, Ven, and an unnamed third. The three possibilities for the third character are, from likeliest to least likely, Aqua, Mickey, or the black-masked keyblade wielder. The gameplay will be like Re: Chain of Memories: in three dimensions, but with decks. We know the following worlds will appear: Radiant Hollow Garden Bastion, Olympus Coliseum, Agrabah, the worlds of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, Destiny Islands, and of course the desert from the secret ending movies, which is called Sunset Horizons.
You may have questions about this, or, more likely, reasons why I'm an idiot who got everything wrong. In this regard, we have anticipated your needs.