Questions about The Final World vs. Kingdom Hearts Itself (Story Spoilers)

[Neoshadow99 31]

Hey everyone, I have some questions about The Final World and Kingdom Hearts, based on what we saw of them in KH3. Before this game, many of us likely thought that Kingdom Hearts itself was a "heaven" of sorts for wayward hearts, ones that cannot be physically reunited with their bodies. It is the collection of countless hearts that have passed on, and is also the source of all light, in the Realm of Light. However, the introduction of The Final World changed this perception, at least for me.

1. What exactly is the main purpose of The Final World? I have tried looking up as much information as I can, but I have only somewhat concluded that it is a limbo/purgatory for hearts that are unable to move on to Kingdom Hearts, due to having a strong bond with the physical world. However, the "stars" that are depicted there appear to be either the remnants of hearts, or the actual souls of those who have not truly "died", waiting to be reunited with someone they care about deeply.

2. Which then brings me to another other point - if there is nothing beyond The Final World, is it a realm where the dead truly linger, or is it a place where one is neither living nor dead? Unfortunately, Chirithy's explanation was still too vague for me to truly understand what The Final World is as a realm of its own.

3. With everything we know, which may not be much, about The Final World, was Sora actually "dead" to begin with, following the first encounter with Organization XIII in the Keyblade Graveyard? He did retain much more of a physical form than expected, a watery silhouette of his former body, rather than just being a fading star like the other (hearts or souls) he encounters. I do understand that all of his friends bodies were consumed by darkness, or destroyed, and that their hearts were being held captive by the "Lich", which attempted to ferry them into the depths of darkness.

4. At the very end of the battle with Master Xehanort, he is weak and fading. Master Eraqus appears to guide him up to Kingdom Hearts, as all that is left of him is presumably his heart or soul. Why were they able to go straight to Kingdom Hearts, and not The Final World? It seems that both locations are resting points for wayward hearts, and it is not clear to me how one can willingly choose to go to Kingdom Hearts.

I hope these questions are straightforward enough. I have been thinking and researching a ton about the plot of this game, and I just can't seem to draw definite conclusions of my own. If anything, KH3's plot and overall story has given us fans so much to ponder, until the next game's release.

 

[ocean's rage 774]

did it ever say that the dead go to kingdom hearts? it was said that hearts freed from the heartless form kingdom hearts but i dont recall anything about the dead

[Neoshadow99 31]

2 hours ago, ocean's rage said:

did it ever say that the dead go to kingdom hearts? it was said that hearts freed from the heartless form kingdom hearts but i dont recall anything about the dead

That is a good point. Perhaps Kingdom Hearts is really just a collection of hearts that still belong to the living. If that is the case, why couldn't Master Eraqus find his way back to his original body? I do recall Chirithy saying that when the body and heart perish together, only the soul remains.

This could potentially explain why Eraqus could not retain his physical form, even after having been freed from Terrra's heart. What we saw of Eraqus may have only been his soul, but that wouldn't explain why he was able to ascend to Kingdom Hearts itself, which should only accept one's heart.

[ocean's rage 774]

2 hours ago, Neoshadow99 said:

That is a good point. Perhaps Kingdom Hearts is really just a collection of hearts that still belong to the living. If that is the case, why couldn't Master Eraqus find his way back to his original body? I do recall Chirithy saying that when the body and heart perish together, only the soul remains.

This could potentially explain why Eraqus could not retain his physical form, even after having been freed from Terrra's heart. What we saw of Eraqus may have only been his soul, but that wouldn't explain why he was able to ascend to Kingdom Hearts itself, which should only accept one's heart.

could very well be

though it feels like it was left deliberately ambiguous 

[The Transcendent Key 12,109]

I think many of these things were left vague on purpose, because since this was't the end of the series, I bet Nomura wanted to give us a taste of what will eventually be the finality of Kingdom Hearts! But for now, we get vague descriptions, ya know? And I'm perfectly fine with that, as it builds up even more mystery and epicness to the awesomeness that is the mythos of Kingdom Hearts!

But yes, as you said, The Final World is basically a purgatory, a limbo where hearts stay in place and do not move on, because they had things to do in the world of the living or are waiting for someone. This is where these hearts go until that time comes when they reunite with said someone and are able to move on. Chirithy saying that there's nothing else after the Final World is something that intrigues me. So what of Kingdom Hearts, then? Is it a realm that is completely cut off from The Final World? If so, who ferries the hearts that are ready to pass on to Kingdom Hearts?

This just sets up the mystery more, and I bet that by the end of this series, we'll actually get to visit the actual Kingdom Hearts!

[Darkfire1408 43]

Well, You're making the assumption that because Kingdom Hearts happened to be above them that that's where they went. The Repliku twins (Super weird and unexplained story there I guess.) faded in a similar manner, glowing in golden light and rising up. They could have gone to the final world.

The series has had lots of talk about other realms. The Realm of Darkness, the Realm Inbetween, the Realm of Light, the Realm of Dreams, and now the Realm of Death. I think of this as 5 sequential planes similar to dimensional theory,  we can see the laws of nature/magic shift in each of these realms, becoming more complex as they go on.

A brief overview of what I'm talking about, the 1st dimension is length, a line. The 2nd is width, think a square or a circle. The 3rd is depth, or space. The 4th dimension, the highest one we can perceive, is Time. You can understand and experience the effect of the dimension you perceive, and the ones below it, but not the ones above it. You can also manipulate the laws of lower dimensional planes. think of folding a paper into an origami crane. If there was a truly 2 dimensional object in existence, you could do the same thing, manipulating it into a 3 dimensional one. we can also move objects in space, because we perceive the higher dimension of time. Theoretically, if we understood what dimension came after time, we could manipulate time in the same way as folding a piece of paper. We don't know what comes after time, but string theorists suggest there could be as many as 26 dimensions. This theory is what gives characters like Mxyzptlk in the DC universe their powers. They come from a higher dimensional plane and can manipulate our laws, and laws we aren't even aware of, as simply as folding a piece of paper, seeming to be magic from our perspective. It's also an argument some people use to try to prove the possibility of a God through modern scientific theory.

In the Realm of Darkness as we see in a Fragmentary passage, there is no concept of time. This leads to the conclusion that it's a lower dimensional plane, and thus, time has no effect on those residing in it. People lost to the Darkness don't die, they just float endlessly in a dark abyss. Denizens of the realm of light are aware of the existence of Time, and so, like Aqua, they notice its absence.

The longest period of time we see spent in the Realm Inbetween is in Chain of Memories in Castle Oblivion,  The World That Never Was and Twilight and Traverse Town. Castle Oblivion is unique due to its constantly changing rooms, The world That Never Was for, not much admittedly, but to be fair it was an artificially created world, but Twilight Town is known for both its always being twilight, and Nobodies coming into being there. Note that while Twilight Town is always Twilight, they have a clock tower. Unlike the one Aqua sees in the realm of darkness, this one was actually built here, which means it functions even though it seems to always be the same time of day. Traverse Town also has a few clocks, namely in the Gismo Shop and the Hotel, while still being eternally night. This would mean that Time begins to function in the Realm Inbetween. 

The Realm of Light is the Realm of Light. Besides the existence of Magic, which exists throughout all the realms in the series, there's nothing really different from our realm, besides hearts. Even Pureblood Heartless don't really come from the Realm of Darkness. They come into being in the realm of darkness when someone falls to it, and their heart becomes a heartless. Take into account that Nobodies are born in the Realm Inbetween without hearts, I think it's safe to say that hearts are native to the Realm of Light. Nobodies can't be born in the Realm of Light as they don't have hearts, and Heartless change the heart into pure darkness. This would also mean that Kingdom Hearts resides directly in the Realm of Light, and is itself a natural law in that realm. Traverse Town has its residents with hearts largely because of moving around wherever it's needed, and Twilight Town likely became populated in a similar manner, especially seeing how Uncle Scrooge seems to openly talk about how he came from another world just outside of his crowded Bistro, and Huey Dewey and Louie have a Gummi Shop. If Sora's their only customer, there's no reason to have a physical shop, just sell it through Chip and Dale. They aren't too concerned with keeping the World Order there.

The Realm of Dreams has a pretty obvious special rule. Dreams take physical form there. This suggests that in this realm, Dreams are their own sort of law. They don't come into being anywhere else, and dreams certainly aren't considered real in the realm of light. With, of course the 'exception' of the Station of Awakening. Which isn't really an exception because it's actually in the Realm of Dreams near the Realm of Death, hence Chirithy's comment that Sora's accidentally crossed over to the Realm of Death a few times. You can also see lower laws like time being manipulated easily there, seeing how varied time is between Sora and Riku's worlds. The further the plane, the easier laws are to manipulate.

The Realm of Death is, as Chirithy put it, the Final world, there's nothing beyond it, for them at least. This is where the soul goes to expire. The most interesting part of this though, is the Lich. As Xehanort told Sora, it's not like other heartless, it ushers hearts to the depths of darkness. I would assume that this is another way of creating Pureblood Heartless. The few hearts that make it there would eventually perish on their own, and without a body they've got no way to return to life, but hey, they get to live as a heartless, better than nothing. It's probably how heartless initially came into being, and I'd suggest that this specific heartless is actually an original Denizen of the Realm of Death. This would probably make the Realm of Death the Dimension of Soul. Hearts aren't supposed to end up there, but sometimes strong ones do. You can also see further manipulation of time and space with Sora's body fragments being stuck in loops from his past and gravity shifting all over the place like it's irrelevant. You also see Namine being able to bend the normal rules of time travel. While you normally can't change the past (Which is why Sora and company had to say and do the same things after resurrection) from the Realm of Death, she was able to influence Terra and change history. I hadn't actually thought about that as an explanation until writing this down, but it makes perfect sense.

So, to sum up, The Realm of Darkness is the Dimension of Space, The Realm Inbetween the Dimension of Time, The Realm of Light the Dimension of Heart, The Realm of Dreams the Dimension of Dreams, and the Realm of Death the Dimension of Soul. While Chirithy said that there was nothing beyond it, its similar to how we can't conceive of what the next dimensional plane for us would actually be. Since the being from the highest realm we've seen is the Lich (Chirithy is actually from the Realm of Dreams) and he's not exactly the talkative type, there's no one in the universe to tell us if there really is one. Hearts aren't supposed to be in the Realm of Death, but strong ones latch on to their soul and end up there. Hearts would normally end up in Kingdom Hearts, staying in the Realm of Light.

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty satisfied with this explanation.

Edited June 25, 2019 by Darkfire1408