Realms - Where is the "nirvana" Ansem seeks?

One of the very last reports we gather in Kingdom Hearts is arguably one of the most important foundationally in the entire series: Ansem's 12th Report. It establishes the Realm of Light, the Realm of Darkness, and affirms Ansem's overall goal of finding "true nirvana." Well, where is it, and how do we find it?

Thank you to Dyxo, Flynn, Kronsi, Shard of Truth, and Neronova888 for your questions on this episode!

Next week's episode: Ansem's "Lost Report" in the End of the World. Send your questions to sheddingstarlight@gmail.com

Shedding Starlight YouTube: https://youtube.com/@SheddingStarlight
Hannah's Twitter: https://twitter.com/hanmckinley
Mel's Twitter: https://twitter.com/KHNyctophiliac
The Secret Reports Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSecretReports
Hannah's YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@hanmckinley

Transcript

0:06

[Music] hello and welcome to shedding Starlight a guide to the Hearts Mythos today we're going to zoom out and look at a more macro topic the various Realms of the Kingdom Hearts Universe which are introduced to us in anthom's 12th report where he writes there are many worlds in existence some of which we know nothing about the world in which we live The Realm of Darkness the realm of light and the world in between wherein Lies True nurana[Music] just like in our first episode on world order the words realm and World here are a bit more of magical uses of the terms rather than practical or scientific fans tend to have their own idea of how these Realms are laid out some fans imagine them adjacent on a horizontal plane but others picture these Realms above one another vertically or as different dimensions entirely this is because there are various instances throughout the series that can point to any of these being the case so far what you picture doesn't exactly matter as long as you can follow along in the story whenever these Realms are relevant so let's break down these great Realms of light and darkness as well as the Lesser areas in between to begin ansom listing the world in which we live separately from the realm of Light May lead fans to believe the ladder is another place entirely a Heavenly realm that's blinding with light or something but let's clear up a common misconception right now the realm of light contains all the various Little Worlds Hollow Bastion Travers Town Destiny Islands before it fell to Darkness and all the Disney Worlds as well the realm of light is made up of the scattered Galaxy we talked about in our episode on World Order with the world in which we live being specifically Hollow Bastion so why is the realm of light called that it's likely in reference to the legend Kyrie's grandmother recites long ago people lived in peace bathed in the warmth of light that was the state of the realm before people fought each other and destroyed the overall world in contrast to the realm of light The Realm of Darkness is a starkly isolated area with very few ways of entering it so far it doesn't seem the gummy ship can reach it at all rku ends up there after being discarded by anom where he's then contacted by an inaudible voice that we can safely assume is King Mickey Mickey says that with two hearts and two keys they can close the big white double doors which he calls the door of Darkness later games call it the door to Darkness but we're sticking with the first game's terminology for now so this door of darkness is one of the few ways you can enter The Realm of Darkness we don't see much of this realm in the first Kingdom Hearts game only the near final scene of the door of Darkness opening and showing us what's on the other side bizarre pillars of what is perhaps rock with veins of glowing crystal among these pillars are hordes of Heartless approaching to cross the door of Darkness the world in between that ansom mentions points to the end of the world that lies between the Realms of light and darkness the end of the world is essentially a graveyard for all the worlds whose Hearts were taken by the heartless and therefore destroyed the further you explore this world the more you see result resembling places like Aurora or Snow White's worlds as well as Destiny Islands that's now corrupted and damaged from Darkness it seems that anom reached the end of the world through the hollow basan Keyhole created by the princesses of heart we've discussed on the podcast before that keyholes lead to the hearts of Worlds and anom wonders in his 10th report if the core of the world's heart is the world of the heartless after beating Hollow basan the princesses say the darkness coming from the keyhole engulfed anom and that later he went far away where they now feel a powerful Darkness growing with all this along with Goofy calling the end of the world a heartless World it seems that anom after being pulled into Hollow bastion's Keyhole was able to reach the end of the world another common misconception is that the end of the world lies inside The Realm of Darkness since it's a very dark World itself but it might be more accurate to say it's touching or adjacent to that realm since it's right outside the door of Darkness while the end of the world and the Realm of Darkness are similar unfortunately we can't get into those similarities until later games likewise when it comes to the overall area between these two Realms some fans interpret it as being included in the realm of light since it's still accessible with the gummy ship and it's outside the door of Darkness but others think that if a place is in this gray area then it should be considered outside the realm of light a beach analogy might help you wrap your mind around this let's say the ocean is The Realm of Darkness and the Coastland is the realm of light the sand is coated with water from the ocean so do you consider it separate from the Coastland or still a part of it while it's more objective to say places like the end of the world are not in the Realm of Darkness whether they're a part of the realm of light or consider their own realm entirely might be open for debate at least in the first Kingdom Hearts game alone the end of the world may not be the only world located in the area between the Realms of light and darkness Ness another world that might belong between these Realms is Travers town the end of the world contains the ruins of destroyed worlds but as for the people who lived on those worlds some of them end up at Travers town when Destiny Islands was destroyed Sora was sucked into this giant black hole of darkness and ended up at Traver Town himself so Travers Town also has some sort of connection to the world's d destroyed by Darkness another place we can talk about is the vast Green Field seen at the very end of the game this place is interesting because while Kyrie ends up back at Destiny Islands Sora Donald and Goofy end up here whether they end up here randomly or not is unknown for now but if it's not random Sora and the others ending up here after being at the door of Darkness implies that this world might be tied to the area between the Realms of light and darkness as as well the final topic we want to bring up is the passage found at World Terminus which mentions the realm of Kingdom Hearts much like the realm of light this might mislead someone into thinking that Kingdom Hearts is its own separate place but this is most likely a misunderstanding of the reading in that rather the realm of Kingdom Hearts is in reference to The Realm of Darkness since it's implied to be where Kingdom Hearts is located with the door of Darkness being the path leading to it so it may not be that Kingdom Hearts is its own realm but rather still a vague entity that within lies Untold wisdom so to summarize everything we've presented today we have the real of flight which consists of all if not most of the various Little Worlds there's also the I isolated Realm of Darkness which seems to contain Kingdom Hearts and has large white doors called the door of Darkness for its entrance then there's places in between these two Realms like the end of the world most notably most consider this in between area as included in the realm of light but there might be others that disagree it's all a bit to keep track of if you're a new fan but throughout the series you will be given more time with all of these interesting locations of Kingdom[Music] Hearts welcome back everybody to shedding Starlight the discussion section we just gave you a uh about 10minute section on uh the Realms of of the first Kingdom Hearts game a about a 10-minute presentation about what all of that means about uh anam's report and what he's looking for and what these different places are I'm here with Mel say hi Mel help me I'm in The Realm of Darkness let me out let me out let me out hello um hello hi Mel how are you doing I'm doing well I'm doing well amazing are you ready to tackle all of my and everyone else's questions that St from this episode today let's [ __ ] get into it let [ __ ] get into it incredible so this is a long script in my opinion A lot of it is straightforward and then there's like one or two paragraphs that are very less straightforward I know I know um so we're going to talk about that so let me me say this let me say this a lot of the ones that are kind of like it could be this or it could be that we don't know for new listeners just to let you know I think Advanced people already know this they can kind of figure it out but if you're new to Kingdom Hearts is the first game you've ever played I when I write these papers or these scripts for us to read aloud I'm purposely thinking of seeds to plant so that in the future sure when Revelations come about you don't feel like it came out of nowhere we're trying to help you kind of see patterns of things so that you can kind of tell when some when something else is connected you kind of see where that came from and you're not completely lost but unfortunately before the seeds are sewn you might look down at a seed and go what the [ __ ] is this seed here for like why why did they include this in the podcast like uh I promise everything is connected okay yeah we have a very unique perspective in that we have 13 games after this or something like that to so we can know what's important for later yes um so that's what we're doing that's that's what Mel's doing I'm not going to claim any credit for that cuz Mel is the one who writes scripts and I'm the one who's like so what does that mean um but I think to start out um at the very I think towards the end of this script we talked about um or is it at the beginning I don't remember it's at the end of are you talking about number one yes this is the beginning this was very near the begin the beginning never mind scratch all that at the very beginning I put in the discussion um an I'm talking about the world in which we live um referring to Hollow Bastion and so this kind of um put me in a place of wondering I think a question that popped up during our very first episode which this episode is obviously very connected to our first episode um it's it's very interesting on like how how does he know all this how much does he know where did he get this knowledge um yeah it's just interesting like he is a ruler of of this world yeah which puts him in a unique perspective because the president gets all of the international secrets and everything anom has the nuclear code yeah literally um but yeah it's just very interesting to see that he he knows all this and can eliminate on all this a[ __ ] ton it kind of reminds me of like real life astronomy like when when NASA comes out with news like Jupiter has this type of atmosphere I'm like girl how the [ __ ] do you know that shut the[ __ ] up there's no your little telescope can tell me that I don't care how big it is and yeah literally I guess you know that's kind of like how I think about anom it's like anom how the [ __ ] do you know all this you're just making [ __ ] up like you happen to be right yeah but you're still just making this up but whatever no yeah it's to me it's more of like the ancient Greeks looking up at the sky and being like the Earth is round like how did you know like you did math and that told you all of that you plugged some numbers in and you wrote it down on some paper and that is so real that's a really good point yeah it's crazy but yeah just it's interesting to think about that and like kind of wonder how he got he got to this place of of uh knowledge and you know I think that is you know we're still very vague you and I are still very vague in this podcast on like what kingdom hearts is what it does which like don't worry we will get to that eventually like calm down but you know right now we've discussed how Kingdom Hearts seems to be like a source of knowledge or wisdom and so I think with with ansom figuring all this out about how the worlds and the Realms work I think him it's almost like what's that saying about science where it's like the more you learn the less you know or I guess like his H for knowledge really is driving him to do such insane things just for this source of like unlimited knowledge especially because when he possesses possesses Riku he's like he says I know all that there is to know and I'm like [ __ ] then why do you want Kingdom Hearts like sit down calm down but I Kingdom Hearts nerds um nerd[ __ ] weirdo so well then Hannah let's move down a little bit down the list and let me ask you because I'm really interested in what you think because I know that you've grown up playing Kingdom Hearts 2 you're a little less familiar with Kingdom Hearts 1 but you still like know everything like you're fine uh but I want to ask you how do you picture the layout of like where's the realm of light and where is The Realm of Darkness in relation to that can can you see the Apple yes I can see the Apple okay so what are you picturing um so I think later games influenced my answer to this but I think with this information um how I picture it as it's like happening I think I definitely picture it dimensionally so like very like um Doctor Who it's bigger on the inside type deal you know um so like do you know what I'm talking about when I say that I do know what you're talking about but are you talking about like The Realm of Darkness is bigger on the inside yes so like the door so like the door to Darkness being the door to the Tardis you know yes ABS I can absolutely see and understand that totally yeah so it's like it it is a door to a different dimension and they're like what is behind it when it's not open is different from what's inside it yeah I think I agree with that yeah so yeah that's that's my visualization of it the tricky about that description which I do agree with is that like okay so I'm kind of going to move on into our next point but connect it with what you said because I think you said a really good point is how if the Realm of Darkness is kind of like the the Tardis of the world which if any of you people are thinking we're so nerdy for bringing up Doctor Who shut up you're listening to a podcast about Kingdom Hearts you're not any better okay listen but anyway I have such a it helps me to just imagine The Realm of Darkness as an actual place yeah just so that it helps me understand this area in between the realm of light and the Darkness a little bit more because so we got a a handful of questions and emails kind of asking about the end of the world because you know they're what they're asking is is it in The Realm of Darkness or not and I with this whole area in between the realm and the the realm of light and The Realm of Darkness because it's not technically inside the Tardis in my head right places like the the end of the world are still in the realm of light because to me any place that's reachable with the gummy ship is in the realm of light and I don't know if that's necessarily like a definitive rule but so far that has always been the case cuz like in future games they'll so Kingdom Hearts 1 outside of anam's report 12 the the term realm of life in Kingdom Hearts 1 is never said it's never spoken nobody ever says it and I think that's why a lot of people get the impression that the realm of light is like heaven or like something you know which you know I don't blame him for thinking that but in later games the realm of light is said so and I think when you play those later games that's when it kind of clicks for you that like oh the realm of light is like where all these worlds are like oh okay like wish somebody would have said that earlier like yeah it is the main setting of of Kingdom Hearts yes and so but whenever they're talking about the realm of light in future games to me it's including places that are in the in between and so I think that's why for me and from my perspective this area in between and world's like the end of the world even though the end of the world looks super spooky and it's kind of weird and really dark to me it's still in the realm of light it's just in that beach that's covered with water even though it's not technically in the ocean uhhuh so anyway but um I'm trying to think go ahead I was well no there you go okay um I was just trying to think like a visual way to remember that and like the fact that the the crossroads and the end of the world looks so different I don't think I'd find any sort of visual like uh connection between them to be like a like the gummy ship is a good rule of thumb I was just trying to think of another visual rule of thumb um but yeah that's all I wanted to say what what did you have to say no that's a good point cuz that little so the if you're listening and you're like what the [ __ ] is a Crossroads Crossroads is that big green lushy area that's just like the fan coined term of that area I forgot we didn't actually say that in the script that's all okay who cares um as long as we explain it like it doesn't and plus like I think um giving new fans terminology that experience fans have been using for years will help new fans kind of like catch on and be like oh so that's what everybody's talking about you know like the keyblade of heart like what the [ __ ] is that oh but anyway um so coming you know you were comparing it with the crossroads with the end of the world and the other thing about the end of the world is that we did get a lot of questions about it that we can't unfortunately directly answer because I think it spills a lot of the story of future games and we kind of want to let those Revelations play out on their own for emotional impact but I will say that When Worlds fall to Darkness it seems to me this is kind of how I picture it or imagine it is that when Worlds fall to Darkness or their hearts are taken by heartless I almost wonder if they like crumble and those crumbs kind of spread out and kind of become dust to different areas and I think that is part of the reason why we might see worlds at the end of the world you know like you know we see areas that are kind of reminiscing of the different old Disney fairy tale movies yeah mhm but it's not like we see like any of those worlds intact they're kind of just all meshed together so it it seems to me that they like different parts of the planet when it crumbles kind of spread and land in different areas and I hope that experienced fans who sent in questions about the end of the world can read in between the lines of what I'm trying to say and that what I'm saying is answering their questions hopefully we have to play a [ __ ] logic puzzle with with this sometimes I know we really got to dance around yeah we do um and speaking of dancing around um I need all of you to come back a few years in the past with me when I was is streaming a lot of these Kingdom Hearts games for the first time and the reason why this podcast exists is because I streamed the whole series on Twitch and Mel was in my chat answering questions for me because I was having trouble understanding the lore so I'm going to go back into that little lore Goblin mode a little bit and just kind of Rapid Fire some questions at Mel and hope that we can like chew on the the concept that I'm about to bring up and we can all move forward together so when I was reading through this script for the first time I was like I fell into a pit of I don't get what this is um whenever whenever we talked about um anom reaching the end of the world through Hollow bastion's Keyhole yeah it's kind of weird yeah it's I'm I read that paragraph and I got confused but I think what I was confused about is is that something that could happen with each world or is that something that is specific to Hollow Bastion or is that even something we can answer at this point you know I think that's a really good question because another question that we've gotten a few times is how the [ __ ] did Micky end up in the Realm of Darkness like if he can't cross through the big white doors like how the[ __ ] did he get there and I wonder if maybe so the interesting thing is is that going through that Keyhole anom didn't end up in the r of Darkness he ended up right outside it so I guess right you know even if we were to say that Mickey was around when a door when a world was falling to Darkness and maybe got like you know involved or accidentally trapped or something right that would still only take him I would think to the end end of the world and so yeah but about Hollow Bastion itself I have been on and off ever since this this podcast's kind of um conception I have been debating and Teeter tottering on if I want to do an episode just about Hollow basan because it is just so interesting because you know why are the seven Hearts brought there why was that Keyhole that they made summoned there why are there a bunch of pipes everywhere that seem to just completely take over and warp the entire world how come Hollow Bastion how come Hollow bastion's heart wasn't taken by the heartless and therefore Hollow Bastion itself end up at the end of the world in shatters as well like mhm there should just so many weird [ __ ] things but Hollow Bastion to this day like even with all of these other games I think Hollow Bastion is one of the most if not the most interesting World in all of Kingdom Hearts like I'm just like obsessed with it and I almost wonder like if we had all of the answers all of the questions answered would I still be as interested or am I only interested because it's so mysterious you know mhm yeah but either way sense I think there might be some reason as to why one hollow Bastian did not fall to Darkness but wasad instead like overcome with all these pipes two that the princesses of heart were brought there and a keyhole was summoned there because of the princesses of heart that eventually anom went through and reached the end of the world I think there's some kind of nested connection spider between all of these different points but unfortunately I can't tell you what it is I wish I could and not even because I know but I can't say because of spoilers no I don't know I don't know yeah it it's just very main character energy coming from this one world yes it's just like why are you special why are You The Chosen One um so then I have a part two to this question which is not super I mean kind of related I guess Goofy calling the end of the world a heartless world what is a heartless world what does that mean is that something we talked about already no we haven't but I assume he calls it a heartless world because it is the remnants of the worlds whose Hearts were taken by heartless so I don't even know if before all of these world started blinking out and getting their hearts taken away the end of the world itself might not have existed existed at all it might have just been like empty Blank Space among the many stars and so maybe all of these different clusters of destroyed worlds starting to coming together and maybe that's why goofy called it a heartless world and it's like it's kind of to me goofy calling it a heartless world is definitely like a Kingdom Hearts one thing where I don't know if in Kingdom Hearts 3 something would ever be called a heartless world you know right so it's like I think we just have to like say oh it's just the place where heartless kind of roam about free you know they're the top dogs and they're living on a bunch of ruins of dead worlds I think unfortunately that's the best we got yeah literally a world full of Heartless not that it's a special you know quotequote heart World okay that's a good point yes yes yeah okay I think I think that was those were the two roots of my confusion with this whole thing is that like I think I was just curious about all of the other worlds and if that was like an established rule that like you know the keyhole leads to the end of the world leads to the door to Darkness or The Realm of Darkness um but that clears it up well I guess it clars it up but I'm still kind of a little confused myself because yeah the fact what I mean what I mean when I say that it clears it up is me saying that like oh Hollow Bastion is mysterious okay okay yeah yeah yeah establishing the fact that there is Mystery rather than just not understanding it okay gotcha yeah so this next point I think will kind of transition us into our viewer questions um I put down here I put in the quote um uh this is most likely the understanding of the a misunderstanding of the reading and that rather the realm of Kingdom Hearts is The Realm of Darkness since it's implied to be where Kingdom Hearts is located with the door of Darkness being the path to it so I wrote down here so this connects back to anom search for True Nirvana which is the 12th report right that's the one at the beginning here um which is the whole reason why we have these reports I guess since Kingdom Hearts is interpreted as true wisdom so like kind of one and the same true Nirvana true wisdom yeah connected and yes and I this is connected to Dio's email so dixo messaged us two overall questions but we're going to answer the second one first so dixo asks also hi again thank you once again for the email hi dxo thank you for your question how much do you think we should read into the fact that the report we get from beating SEO which is the 12th report has ants some musing about looking for a paradise or perhaps a Promised Land even depending on the interpretation so he doesn't say Paradise he says Nirvana and I maybe it's different based off of um translations maybe in different languages he says different things but as for English he says the word Nirvana and yeah I'm not super familiar with Buddhism but it's my understanding that Nirvana is a state of mind and a state of being and that paradise is more like a place and so that is really important to distinguish when we're talking about what ansom ons out of Kingdom Hearts does he think it's a place that he can visit or will it Grant him a state of mind and like like we said that true wisdom that Untold wisdom is that what he wants and in my opinion yes that's what he wants not necessarily to visit a place yeah I think it would be I think the reason why these two things are so connected is probably because this is just me speculating but like getting to Paradise probably causes Nirvana they're two very connected Concepts at least like that's so not to get into my religious trauma but I uh grew up Catholic so I like I know that like at least in Christianity the concept of Heaven is being with God and having true peace so like I assume that that kind of translates to other religions as well maybe I don't know I'm speculating here but like that's I think that since they're just two very connected Concepts that people might think they're a little interchangeable but if we're reading super literally here I would agree with you that Nirvana is a state of being and Paradise is a place now some people might go to paradise to achieve Nirvana yes but um they're two different things in my in my scope of view I think that's a that's really wise of you to say and that honestly like helps me understand future developments of this series that we can't talk about yet like kind of Birth by Sleep and what the person from that game kind of wants uhhuh yeah but all in due time but anyway all in due time so Dio's first H first question of their email says so the battle against anom has Us in the realm of light still which you know like we said some people think that if you're in the end of the world you're still in the realm of Light which I agree with but I don't know if that's def definitive I can't remember unfortunately given that we see the Realm of Darkness on the other side of the door if that pitch black void surrounding the door to Darkness isn't Darkness what is it so I was almost like debating on if we should wait for this question for the next episode but I mean like whatever I'll just get into it now like who cares who cares who gives sh so what de was talking about if you're a new Kingdom Hearts fan and you're were like what so before you fight anom as his super large heartless fight you know where you Glide around when you first look at the door there's nothing really around it it's just that big white door but then after you beat anom and you see the cut scene of him trying to like open the door and summon Kingdom Hearts you see this big black heart silhouette around the door and a lot of fans have kind of wondered like is this Kingdom Hearts because how Kingdom how anom describes Kingdom Hearts a couple of times is like the great heart the heart of all Worlds the great Darkness that's sealed within the great heart and so there's kind of like this unanimous understanding among among fans that this kind of like negative what's the term you know like those two guys staring at each other that also look like a vase oh yeah um is it is that just called like negative absenc or like I don't know I would just say an illusion I don't know um I can try to Google it really quick it's like absent space or oh it's just called negative space okay so yeah okay it just seems like um there's this dark heartshaped kind of black void around the door that a lot of fans have come to the speculation that that's Kingdom Hearts I personally knowing what we know am not honestly really willing to say that it's Kingdom Hearts it might be but it's it's just a little too different from what we know now that I personally even if at one point in my life I did think it was Kingdom Hearts I have now taken that back and revoked that and I personally am a little unsure but I mean honestly thinking that is Kingdom Hearts there's no [ __ ] shame like there's it doesn't hurt anything it doesn't affect anything if you think that's Kingdom Hearts then like hell yeah by all means like you know whatever so anyway that's what dixa was referring to mhm well Kingdom Hearts to me will always be the giant moon on the cover of the game just that's my take on it she's so beautiful she's like a pearl a pearl in the one more she's like a block of cheese that I want to eat so Flynn Al also oh my God Hannah so we got our first email from my good friend Flynn and me me and Flynn have been Kingdom Hearts fans for like a decade maybe over decade go has seen me through every single Kingdom Hearts project I have ever made so when we got that email from him oh my God I was ecstatic but anyway hi Flynn hi I'm Hannah nice to meet you so the okay so Flynn asks how did rku end up in the Realm of Darkness and with his body no less he's definitely there before anom is defeated as we see a cut scene of him somewhere between Hollow Bastion and the final boss in the Final Mix version which honestly like if you're a new fan you're like do I have Final Mix if you got it on the PS4 yes you do don't worry about it anoms report 12 says to get to The Realm of Darkness one must go through the doors of Kingdom Hearts the place where the world's heart connect but clearly he's just flat out wrong there King Mickey got in somehow as did rku so um once again actually I don't know if this is once again I feel like I said this before but maybe I didn't but in the next episode we're going to be talking more about Mickey I won't get into like what's the next episode topic just yet you know we'll wait a little bit but you got to get to the end of the episode for that that's right you got to make it all the way there um but I because we talked about rku being in the realm of darkness before and how it kind of just seemed like he ended up there after rku was like done with him like I don't need you anymore and like flicked him away you know once again this kind of emphasizes this idea especially with Mickey that this game keeps saying that Kingdom Hearts seems to be the only way to The Realm of Darkness but it also just does not seem to be the case and so I don't know you know just overall hopefully if we haven't yet then we can in the future hopefully in the future we can really get into how the [ __ ] do you enter The Realm of Darkness how does happen we might not be able to really fully com through that answer in this episode and maybe not even in the next episode but hopefully eventually we will be able to be like okay we have enough information enough story is passed here's all the different ways you can enter The Realm of Darkness but unfortunately I just don't think we're there yet well I would like to take a vacation to The Realm of Darkness just to to be a tourist so I'm hoping that we can figure that out soon so it doesn't ruin my travel plans I'd love to take little geod from the room of darkness and smash those suckers up you know they're glowy you know they're pretty uhhuh I saw those little rocky formations at the end of Kingdom Hearts those looked so pretty so actually this is not anything to do with the emails but as I was writing the script and I was like okay what the [ __ ] am I looking at like pillars of rock they have like veins of glowing crystal like that's what I wrote right but then like I got like this icky Eerie feeling down my spine because I was like what if like that's not rock what if you touch the formations that all those heartless were on and it's like soft like that would be awful that would be so bad pulling up pictures of it that would be horrible be so gross unfortunately we can't get to to all of Flynn's questions because I think a couple of them we've already answered in the presentation um but Flynn also asks what is up with the grassy Plains the Trinity which you know if you're a new Kingdom Hearts fan the Trinity is often what people call sord Donald and Goofy it's just shorthand because of the the Trinity marks that you can um unlock in Kingdom Hearts 1 accomplish examine I don't know the Trinity are apparently able to walk from whatever is left at the end of the world at the door to some random Sunny planes also Pluto got there yes yeah so to me as you know like you said in the beginning um when we were kind of comparing like the is the end of the world between the light and the Darkness and it looks really scary but then these grass of plains might be between the end of the darkness and it looks really nice looks like a [ __ ] vacation Windows XP you know so yeah it kind of oh and you know what I'm kind of gonna make a jump here and scroll all the way down to shards of truths email because Shard of shards of Shard of Truth sent us an email that unfortunately I won't really be able to directly quote them because they kind of start talking about things that are introduced in later games but overall Shard of truth thank you for your email kind of gave us another analogy to describe the area between the light and dark Ness because when I used the beach analogy we were kind of that's kind of makes you imagine like a horizontal plane of everything yeah but Shard of Truth gives us a Stairway analogy and that kind of gives us a more vertical presentation yeah um where each world that's in the area in between the light and darkness can kind of be like a Stairway so each world gets darker and darker as you step down through the staircase and so it might be that the planes are higher up on the staircase and then the end of the world is much lower if that makes sense is at a lower step so what would be the order then so that would be like the ROM of light and then go ahead maybe like I mean I it's all debatable to me so you might like disagree you might think I think this world's a little bit more darker but like I you know let's say like the realm of light the grassy Plains maybe Travers town if Travers town is located in this area in between and then maybe the end of the world and then the Realm of Darkness okay gotcha I'm trying to remember pict what worlds are only in Kingdom Hearts 1 and not accidentally say a world from a future game yeah no you're good but anyway but also you know Flynn from before also mentioned Pluto's there honestly I don't know what the [ __ ] is going on with Pluto here's the PLO is a multi-dimensional being that can travel at the blink of an eye through Dimensions real real talk throughout this series if you see Pluto somewhere you just got to accept that you just got to go yep there's Pluto there he is cuz I'm just like damn does this guy have a gummy ship himself like what the[ __ ] oh Pluto driving the gummy ship that's so good that's that so cute it's PAW activated yes uh incredible incredible thoughts so the last emailer that I would like to get to is cronzy Hello cronzy thank you for the email hi cronzy cronzy sent us a couple of questions but I feel like um their first two questions are things we've already disc discussed and covered in this episode but I am really curious about or at least interested in their last question so crony wrote the world Terminus that leads to different worlds Sora and the Gang has already visited and forces them to visit those worlds where the keyhole still needs to be sealed how is it that Sora does not visit visit any new worlds if every star in the sky is a world it feels like a big coincidence that they only visit the worlds in which were relevant to the game it would make sense if all the worlds were the princesses of heart stem from would be included but this is not the case so like for example one of the worlds do you do you know what uh cronzy is referring to right now uh which part um so cron is kind of talking about at the end of the world at one point you kind of go through these pillars of light and every time you step through a pillar of light you reach a place that you've been before so you'll like oh yeah so like one of the places that you end up at is the 100 Acre Woods and you're just like what the fck like why am I here right right right right so to me when I personally interpret these places that you visit as not being like the real world themselves because I mean like I guess for one there's still like the ominous music playing and to me that's kind of like a sign that you're not actually at that world you're still at the end of the world and I I know that kind of um uh defies the word Terminus cuz I think Terminus is like terminal right like a station right yeah yeah um but I I just don't think that that's what's happening here and that rather we're visiting places that Sora remembers or like I personally call them Echo because they just kind of seem like Hollow like you still hear it you still hear an echo of something but it just seems more more less life full more lifeless how do you say it seems less lifelike and it kind of just seems like a flat version of itself so that's what I call them I call these Echoes and I didn't think I really realized I call them Echoes until years later when we see something kind of similar happen in the future of the series even though this kind of happens again in the future something kind of similar it still kind of gives me the vibe that it's just like a memory from his heart like he's not actually there especially because one of the worlds that he visits at the end of the world is the 100 Acre Wood which was like a magical book so it's like why would the end of the world lead him there of all places and so but then you know that kind of begs the question because the very last of these memory World Echo things is the world terminous lab that you and I have been talking about throughout the whole series of this podcast uhhuh and this is a place that sora's never been to before right and so I want to say that that I want to say that these places that sora's seeing is from his own heart it's from its own memory but clearly that is a contradiction and that's a whole in the theory that I think but I don't I still don't necessarily feel like he's actually going to these places personally but maybe that's just my own interpretation and maybe I just assumed that that's what everybody else was thought when everybody else was on a different page than me and I just never knew um excuse me if this is a stupid question but has Kyrie been to the world Terminus lab oh my God maybe she has because anom was like I'm going to experiment dumb people I found this girl you and I talked about how heartless are drawn to the princesses of heart so maybe they were drawn to her in there that's a good point Hannah but okay there we go that's so interesting if Sora was able to see this place not because of his own heart because at this point Kyrie's heart had left Sora when Sora goes to the end of the world Kyrie's not in his body anymore uhhuh right but it seems like she still kind of left those parts of her with him uhhuh and so it' be really really interesting if he was able to see this room because of her that's a very oh Hanah Hanah this is why I'm so glad you're here with me I love doing this with you see I have Sparks of wisdom every now and then but like it's just it's a fleeting moment every every so often that I just need to grab on to and I only think it's anything because you say that it's anything so you know I'm glad I can help Okay the last question I want to get to is at the very very bottom this was asked a long time ago on a a few of a not like the previous episode but I think a few episodes ago so narom Nova 888 on YouTube Hello thank you for the question asked why was Kyrie basically teleported back to Destiny Islands at the end of Kingdom Hearts what won when we know that in that game she wasn't from that world to begin with and this is kind of like um going back to the grassy Plains how come Sora and the others ended up there and not some other world is it random or does it mean something because it I wonder if the reason why Kyrie ended up back at Destiny islands is because maybe that's like hypothetically home is where the heart is or like you know she grew up there that's might be what she considers home um but I do think that that's a good question that I can't necessarily say that's like that's the definitive answer but rather that's just how I interpret the situation what do you think of that no I think that makes sense I would agree with that um it's it's what she remembers you know she doesn't really remember her old home mhm so I would agree with that that okay well so I guess now's a good time to say what the next episode is yeah M tell us what the next episode is about that we've been hinting at for this whole 15 minute discussion so we had to lay out this episode first as groundworks for the next episode because the next episode we are going back to the page at World Terminus that we keep [ __ ] talking about and this this time we're doing like a deep dive into that passage what the hell is this guy rambling about during this whole paragraph how come we can only visit it once you know like what is the deal and because we're talking about the contents of that passage we're also talking deeply more deeply about um the door to Darkness or the door of darkness and we're talking more deeply about Kingdom Hearts what is it and we're also talking about something that kind of ties into it which is Mickey how did Mickey know that there was a keyblade in The Realm of Darkness like anom knew cuz anom if anom wrote that pass whatever I'll save it for the next episode but that's all we're getting into you know so incredible for all those people who are like why don't you just tell us what kingdom hearts is like just tell us already we were saving it we were saving it okay so here we go now we're getting into it thank you hell yeah we got to get we got to get you enticed with all of the the the foundational stuff first and then we can answer the bigger questions so like yes stick around and we'll answer the bigger questions the juic your questions CU we got to keep that listener attention you know so if you have questions about any of that stuff send it to shedding Starlight gmail.com as you can see we read every email that we get and interpret whether we want to put it on the show or not I don't even know if Hannah likes that I do that that I want to read every single one but I can't help it I want to know all of your knowledge I want it helps me understand seeing what other people's questions are because a lot of times I'll have the same questions um yeah and I I feel like that's always nice to realize like okay I'm not the only one who got lost on this thank God yeah yeah yeah um so yeah I think that's it for today is that is that it for today Mel I think so incredible um so as always if if you're watching this on YouTube hit that subscribe button hit that like button um if you're listening to this on audio be sure to review the show on Spotify and apple podcast five stars because you're we're our you're we're your favorite Kingdom Hearts podcast out there I'm sure um no shade to anyone else though but um give us his five stars um tell a friend if they like Kingdom Hearts that there's a a new lore guide that they can listen to and um yeah I think that's it thank you all for listening and we'll see you in the[Music] Starlight