What is your opinion on "word of God" (Nomura quotes) or continuity?

A fun little discussion I thought up. I'm sure we've all seen, been in or dealt with the more hardcore/elitist side of the fandom. Those that treat Nomura's word like a bible.

We've likely also seen those that choose to ignore them and follow in-game stuff and I'm sure some middle grounds exist as well.

What's your take on all of that?

---Just to give example I'll state my opinion, you can just answer the question above and skip if you wish though---

My stance on it has been on multiple fronts. For a while I followed all the quotes and stuff after years of only partly jumping in on classic discussions of the day. (like "does Roxas have a heart?")
However as time has gone by the more I knew and analyzed the more I hated what I saw. Fandoms seem confused on what "retcon" means and label more than there actually are however some do exist. Then there's writing issues like KH2's story or how BBS makes it's cast seem overly low in IQ all the for the sake of making Xehanort seem brilliant. (then there is cringe worthy moments like "you make the weirdest brothers herr herr")

Small things in the whole but they add up as you over analyze. I eventually ditched all of that and took a casuals approach because the story is still fun (in areas) in this manner. What really stopped my nature of following Nomura word for word was the appearance of contradictions that appeared later.

For instance Nomura has stated (infamously) that there is "no death" in Kingdom Hearts YET the Ansem report of KH2, number 4, said otherwise;

So not only does KH2 contradict his words and say that death exists but we've also seen in. Clayton, Barbosa, Mufasa, Shan Yu, Oogie Boogie, they all outright died.
Yes yes you can work a headcanon into this but in the end that's a headcanon to explain a contradiction.

It doesn't stop there either you have earlier things like Nomura saying Roxas left the Org due to dreams of Sora but Days showed he left because of Xion.
We were told Chi would just be a browser game but now it, Unchained and Back Cover are now story essentials.
Or more recently an interview said time is "slower" in the Dark Realm but Aqua says in 0.2 that there is "no time" at all.

Then of course you have places like wikias or other fan sites passing off headcanons like "project shell" to explain what Sora was between KH1's end and Kh2's start while Roxas was running around. It's a good theory but a headcanon one.

I'm not ranting to bag anything, not at this point in my life, I'm just listing reasons. These reasons just told me that I was looking at a series of Mickey Mouse meets Cloud too hard. I had sucked all the fun out of it myself by analyzing or staring into these minor holes that you'd only see if you were looking. (well except writing/script wise)

So in light of that I chose to just ignore them. Follow the example of the casual crowd who fill sites with amazing art like I see on Twitter. Yes some have ignored titles yelling for "KH3!" but not all of them do this. Many casuals follow it in what way they can and just enjoy it for what it is by going on game info alone. I like this approach, I only use the games themselves as my continuity now and as a result I can actually have fun playing some of the games again.

 

Oh hey repliesssss thank youuuu

I've finally started to take the same stance. Death of Author is truly the best way to handle something when trying to take in everything from other sources just makes more holes than it fixes. In hindsight it kinda also takes the fun out of a series, nothing left to wonder.

 

This is kinda one reason why I've taken Kittys stance in ignoring it, it goes into her ongoing series point. It can literally change at a later date, like the quote that nobodies don't age. Nomura did indeed make that statement but later we saw Ienzo, Lea and Isa. It was quite clear they've aged. Which you can chalk this up to the "growing hearts" rule DDD bluntly clarified but that's still a change.

Sadly Nomura did state this fact. It was from a period before I dropped interviews entirely so I could find it for you with time. It's one of those cases of adding more exposition than is needed, explaining what doesn't need to be. Like you said, it'd make far more sense for him to be simply immune to time spells since he's time displaced. Him having a keyblade could be explained as due to him meeting his older selves, etc.

Lots of easier explanations for this one part.

 

Assuming later titles didn't retcon it, if you speak to Leon in KH1 after Hollow Bastion he'll mention he and the others escaped 9yrs prior. BBS takes place 10yrs before KH1. This would mean there was only one year of difference in there so theoretically, Axel, Saix and Zexion should've been pintsized nobodies. I actually have shots of this thanks to PS4




It does. It overlooks lots of things and over explains others. T-T

To be honest, I'm not sure. Most of the comments I saw at launch and even now over DDD are rather negative. Most hate the time travel and think it's confusing so they tend to ignore it. Others who try to rationalize tend to do so in very out of nowhere ways like saying there's other timelines and whatnot.
Personally I don't think many had questions for that specific part though. Some wondered why he had a keyblade but, let's be honest, there was no real need to elaborate on any of it.

Kinda like how superfluous the "true master" and "inheritance ceremony" is in BBS. All those did was piss people off Sora isn't a master (yet) or bring up "Jack will get a keyblade" jokes. A friend of mine compared it to the midochlorian logic of the Star War prequels.

 

That's what I assume happened, I do wonder if it would be a retcon or not looking back on this since the no aging thing was interview only.
I gave up on the clothes haha. I chalk it up to laziness. The models for Ienzo's labcoat already exists because apprentice Xehanort and Even wear them whereas Axel would require an entirely new outfit. Easy to draw on paper but it's time and resource to code.

That's me just guessing though.

 

I don't recall a reason being given for it but we still see it partially with Ventus. His body has just sat there sleeping without needing food, water, etc.

I'm not sure what Nomura's logic was for the nobodies though. KH is a mix of eastern and western ideals so I never know what meta to read up on with it. I'd assume, and this is me just really guessing, is that it's because the heart is kinda the KH equivalent of soul.

I'm not sure how much it's worth now but KH2's journals said the heart body and soul were a trinity of sorts. We've seen that memories can be separate of the heart too but that's where they're commonly held.
Soooooooo tdlr: the body is just kinda there without a heart I suppose? No mind to experience time and thus nothing to age.

I mean, that's BS now since we've seen it. The only body that hasn't changed by lack of heart if Ven so it's all BS no matter how ya look at it. That's just a guess I'd take based on what I remember.

 

I forgot to mention Kairi as well, she is the only other time we've seen a body (with it's living soul in tact) not do anything. Although she doesn't have anything on Ven who's been in that chair a good 11yrs now in-story. Dx

I'd like to hope for that too but I'm skeptical. Nomura, his writers, or both, seem to get off on all this to me....I mean leaving things vague is fine, it's good to let people wonder about a world but you can't just stack questions and leave it be...

 

It's possible, we know at the very least that Kairi's body stayed that way due to lack of darkness. Namine only existed herself due to Sora's placement in that scenario, normally Kairi wouldn't even have a nobody.
The fact that Kairi's body was left in tact but namine was born from seemingly nothing is still a huge headache of a lore knot.

That's one of the harder things to gauge. It seems Vanitas didnt return to Ven but we saw him in KHDDD, in some form he exists even if Sora didn't see him. (we did though)
Then there's how Ven's heart station returned after Vanitas seemingly broke apart, where he lands is where it returns, etc.

I've seen a lot of debate going either way on him...I would say he didn't since Ven actively rejected Vanitas but I don't hold it as 100% since I don't know what to expect. Like, maybe Vanitas is part of Ven again and the one we'll see is time displaced or maybe he's floating around somewhere since Ven kicked him out or perhaps he took over Vens body while Ventus was out, etc.

Thats just a few theories I've seen with time...

 

I assume that as well. I was referring to the kinda ambiguous updates back in 2012. There was a good case for the fact that Sora didn't see Vanitas but only we did as a type of nod.
THat's a sidenote thinking on it though. It's kinda hard to peg where he went. Where Vanitas is will shape how he comes back. I'd like to think Ventus rejected Vanitas but it's kinda suspect that Ven too would've been kicked out of his body at the end.

 

Tbh I'm not sure. I think Ven had to leave but I'm not sure if it was forced out or his heart was just too weak to stay on it's own. Vanitas merged with him, they seemed to have a joint heart of sorts and then Ven literally shattered it.

I've seen good arguments over it during the years but no ones has really proved one or the other. At most, it's clear no one was in the body for a good long while. Ven's body did smile in the KHDDD ending though.

I was always hoping Ven just assimilated Vanitas myself, they were originally the same person and Vens station returned as Vantias faded away. KHDDD kinda crushed that hope....