The Mysteries and Machinations of the Master of Masters

Thanks so much for checking out this video! I'm just starting to scratch the surface here on the insane amount of details that have been shown to us in the last few Kingdom Hearts installments, and I hope to bring you more videos as soon as I can. I'm sorry they take so long to come out!

The Master of Masters is the hero, villian and antagonist all at the same time.

Dude. You are the most underrated person ever when it comes to explaining kingdom hearts. It’s honestly disrespectful how unnoticed all your hard work goes. I only say that because I believe you deserve the whole kingdom hearts fandom subscribed to your page. Your work is easily worth a million subs. Not even exaggerating. At this point, you could be dead wrong. But I’ll take what you say as truth because of how well you’ve constructed your thoughts on piecing together the kingdom hearts story. This video was so easy to follow and I was consumed by it. Thank you so much for all your hard work and dedication man. This was one of your best videos yet!

Sora; tears the fabric of time and space to resurrect the guardians of light and changes actual fate itself Donald; yOu fAiLeD tHe eXaM hAhaHa! yOuRe sO lAMe

The content we needed

I would describe Kingdom Hearts as my favourite series I'd never recommend to anyone. The rabbit hole has gone so deep it's practically reached the other side of the planet, I'd never want to pull anyone in. But gosh darn it no way I'm gonna leave this hole at this point Great vid as always damo, you're probably making more sense than Nomura ever will lol

important to note that even if the Master of Masters IS light, he can still be a bad guy/major antagonist. After all, Master Eraqus was channeling light in BBS when he tried to kill Ventus, and that was a wrong thing to do even if he was under the influence of light and not darkness. Light =/= Good

22:24 why is this SUCH STRONG JIM HALPERT ENERGY

The latest story update doesn't confirm, but raises my suspicions on what kind of role the Master of Masters may take in the future. For a while, we've known that the Master wants a bring an end to the conflict between light and dark, and now we clearly see he's willing to go to any limits to make that a reality. I'm definitely not the first one to suggest the series might head in the direction of showing the icky side of the light, but I want to paint a picture in a way that so far I don't think anyone has (though if this has been said before please let me know :p). Think back to what Aqua said to Terra in Birth By Sleep: "what else is darkness but hate and rage?". It is true that harboring strong feelings of anger will make you vulnerable to the dark, and most of the characters thus far use the force of darkness that way, but it is a fallacy (or something? if it is I forget the name of it) to then conclude that hate and rage are all what darkness encompass. I'm reminded of the build surrounding firebending in Avatar: The Last Airbender. In their desire for conquest, they perverted the ability into one of hate and rage, and so the more one had, the better their firebending would be. Then came the book 3 episode that revealed firebending is actually about channeling the power of the sun as if it were inside you, and understanding that makes your firebending infinitely better. While it is a completely different series with completely different mythos, I would not be surprised if darkness in Kingdom Hearts wasn't all that different. I mean hell, Riku's strongest fighting abilities are rooted in the power of darkness, yet he's probably one of the coolest and calmest people in the series. If darkness was all "hate and rage", then it should logically follow that Riku cannot use its power, yet he can. So then we have to ask: what actually is darkness? Not the sentient being we know as darkness, but what it actually is as a concept. Like Damo said, darkness is the absence of light. But i think it goes a bit deeper: darkness, in practice, helps one make out details in what would otherwise be a vast, invisible expanse of light. Anything visible in a light miasma is cutting through it and casting a shadow. Some of that light is being reflected, refracted, absorbed, what have you; the point is, it's no longer straight light. There is a tinge of darkness, not enough to actually overpower it, but to make itself known. I think this is what darkness actually is in Kingdom Hearts: the ability to have shadows cast. People with massive hate and/or anger just happen to live in them. So what does that make light then? If Dark Road is any indication, it's to give the impression of peace and normalcy, regardless of whether it is real or not. Light can be used in the art of deception: it can misguide others and turn them away. It can masquerade the ugliest parts of someone's character simply with the power of impressionability. Kinda like how the light of Aqua and Ventus cast shadows on Terra. So, perhaps ironically, light's purpose is to illude, and darkness' purpose is to reveal. Now what does this have to do with the Master of Masters and the Foretellers? Well, if we are running under the assumption that they are beings of light, just as Xehanort and his crew were beings of dark, then they actually set up a perfect parallel. They are so infatuated with the light that they start shitting on one another for not having enough light, or starting to doubt the power of light. It was never about darkness: that was just a side effect of wanting to protect the light so much. Heck, what good would a Power Bangle be if you don't want to be fulfilling a daily quota of Lux? I mean hell, think back to what young Xehanort said in Re:MIND: "People believe themselves to be moral and virtuous, but it's all just an act". It's the art of pretending that you're the good guy just because you're a strict adherent to the light. Hell, he could have lowkey been roasting Eraqus and how his obsession with keeping darkness out of his pupils' hearts cost him his life. If Xehanort and his lackeys represent what happens with a fanatic obsession with the darkness, then perhaps the Master and his pupils represent what happens with a fanatic obsession with the light. So that's the way I think Kingdom Hearts is not just going to veer into a theoretical "Light Seeker Saga", but also paint the Master of Masters as an antagonist. Yeah, he had the noble goal of wanting to bring a permanent end to a conflict.....via a millenia long gambit that involves having one of his pupils become cynical through thousands of years of body hopping, the deaths of thousands of innocent people in several forms of war, several test of friendship and trust, and, if the Melody of Memory trailers are any indication, some form of child abuse. Note that I'm not trying to say the Master is "evil" or a "villain": he is just someone (or if you want to dig into rabbit hole theories, someTHING) working against the goals and aspirations of our protagonist Sora. But now you might be thinking: "well wait: if Sora's goal in the next saga is to demonstrate to the Master why you shouldn't try extinguishing the darkness, wouldn't that best be achieved by actually using the power of darkness?". And the answer is yes. "But Sora has always been one to use light!". Also yes. But what good will that do? You can't fight fire with fire: Keyblade wielders tried that shit in x and look where that got them. Now yes, Sora has historically never voluntarily used the power of darkness..... but he has exposed himself to it. Setting aside Rage and Anti forms for a second, what did Young Xehanort accuse him of doing in Kingdom Hearts 3? Casting himself into the abyss, the same one that made his heart almost sink into darkness no less. The order for the Realm of Light was to never alter the past, and Sora flat out said he didn't give a fuck and changed it anyway. This man was fully content with the Realm of Light kicking him out (because boners yes, but that's beside the point lol). I mean really, neither Xehanort nor the Master were "right": they were both selfish. Both decided that the world needed to be purged and reset because of the respective problems of light and darkness. Their conclusions were correct: their actions taken as a result of them were not. Now mind you, neither is Sora's, but in his own words, "There's a lot I don't understand, but I know this is all I can do right now". Think: if light and dark cannot exist without the other, what happens if neither are present, or at the very least taking action against another? This is understandably very difficult to grasp because, while it is pretty clear now that all of the Master's machinations up to this point were to ultimately stop darkness, the jury is still out as to why this is the case. Like, why did Luxu need to body hop? Why did he need the black box? Why did he need to instigate two Keyblade wars? Why was the black box ostensibly written out of continuity following the first Keyblade War? While the reason for this is obviously important.....ultimately does it really matter? Evidently no one else knows much about the universe aside from the Master, so like fuck they have the acumen to comprehend all of this pain and strife was for good intent (after all, as Xehanort said, it's far too easy to just dismiss what you do not comprehend). And maybe that's all they'll need to fight back. I mean, I never really thought Luxu was exempt from it either even before this update, considering he had orders from the MoM to wait for the "Dark Master" that the MoM himself would groom into the position of wanting to instigate a second Keyblade War (though he might have spoken to others in this time period, who knows). If the Master is really rallying up the toughest warriors in the multiverse, it stands to reason that he wants Sora and his invincibility against the darkness. It's up to Sora to show why he shouldn't. I mean, isn't that the whole point to Dark Road? Showing how Xehanort, after seeing all the false light in the world, decided the world was better served by darkness? Or, at the very least, was in dire need of it?

Have you ever played the Legacy of Kain games? In Soul Reaver2 Kain said something like "you can flip a coin and it will land on either Heads or Tails, but what if you could flip a coin enough times that it will eventually land on the edge? Neither Heads nor Tails?" I think the Master of Masters is trying to get a similar outcome. Also instead of an Avatar of Light could Sora be an Avatar of Kingdom Hearts itself?

The story is about a Temporal PARADOX. Kingdom Hearts story revolves around a paradox. The characters keep "respawning" and always wake up with some woman hanging over their head after they are sleeping. Laurium wakes up to Strelitzia above his head, Xehanort wakes up on Destiny Islands, Ventus wakes up to Aqua above his head, Sora wakes up to Kairi above his head. They are living in a Temporal PARADOX.

The inner machinations of his mind are an enigma

“The melody of memory trailer shows someone, that could be the master of masters appearing.” Xehanort: “You thought it was a plot point that gets more explaining, but it was I, Xehanort!”

This is what I love about the Kingdom Hearts series, the theories.

Im still pretty convinced the Shibuya is some variant of TWEWY’s. And the cost of Sora (and or yozora) abusing whatever they did threw them into a unique variant of the reaper’s game. And its something MoM may be aware of and needed sora to do what he did. Both Sora and Yozora intentional “exist” within the same, but opposite bounds.

I feel like I will be coming back to this video a lot. You collected all the information carefully and you were able to make it so easy to follow. I'm really grateful for all your hard work

The Master of Masters as a being of light could be possible, remember we saw Strelitzia in that white coat in Lauriam's dream, so he could some how be related to that. Also im not sure if anyone has ever said so but me and my brother have a theory that the world of Verum Rex is actually Data Daybreak Town in the present time, because Verum Rex seems to focus a lot on technological weapons, Yozora can steal Sora's Keyblade and has keyblades etchings on his shoulders so it seems he has some potential to use one in some way, also because you get the Wreck it Ralph Link Summon when you enter the Verum Rex mini game in the ToyBox which we know that Data Daybreak Town is connected to Ralph's world. And if you check the billboards in Shibuya there is a billboard that mentions vacation spots and has a picture of Destiny Islands, so im assuming Data Daybreak Town is still one big massive world all connected instead of being multiple smaller worlds like we are use to in the regular world.

Random thought: Maybe the Master of Masters is so prone to seeming shifts in personality due to - in a way- existing all over time? Or at the very least seeing things, and this leads to personality shifts/some sort of sensory overload that leads to seeming random, but smooth enough shifts that they are capable of controlling them. No matter how powerful one is (unless you are akin to a deity/demon/other such being with a far greater mind than that of a human/time as a concept is experiences vastly differently) - If you can/are constantly on a whim being exposed to countless events you see with an eye no longer in your head...well, I know I would probably be equally as prone to shifting my personality (to accomplish things perhaps? Knowing what approach will work for what situation to achieve a desired outcome)....and probably go a bit mad in the process. Even if the ability can be toggled on/off, it would still be a really crazy rush of sensory data to gaze across the time line. Of course the seemingly random personality shifts could just also be the Master of Masters being rather bored of knowing things in advance, and thus to alleviate the boredom they just mess about like that. Whatever it is: Sooner or later....time will tell.

That “alternate” Shibuya is the Shibuya from the game The World Ends With You. Not sure if you knew because you didn’t specify, but the characters all appeared in DDD. The 10-4 building was an important part of the game and I’m think that what it represents, the “beginning” or “starting over again and again”, would mean something for Sora. It could represent the start of the new game or that he’s finally in the real world, although TWEWY didn’t technically take place in its own canonical “Realground”, or RG, but in the “Underground”, UG.

I think that we are dealing with a huge plan, something only a master of CHESS would really be able to understand. In chess you plan your moves in order to reach victory. Sometimes your actions could seem absurd to your opponent's eyes. Sometimes you even decide to sacrifice a piece that is thought to be relevant in the chess game. If we assume that MoM is fighting against the darkness and that every action he took is done to save the light... Well, maybe everything that happened was meant to deceive Darkness, to fall right into his plans. So, he knew that Darkness was around, trying to steal his knowledge, trying to spy every move. And he made the perfect plan for it. He wrote a "false" Book of Prophecies and assigned roles to the Foretellers which did not 100% fit their personalities. He then chose the future Union Leaders knowing that Ava would have ended by disobeying his orders. He wrote the Book so that it would seem everything was happening as it was foretold, or with slight minor differences. He was AWARE that Darkness would have tried to take place of one of the Union Leaders. He even told the Foretellers that if someone would have fallen into Darkness they would have recognised it by looking at the Chirity's appearance. If we assume that MoM is fighting to save the world then he must have foreseen what Sora would have ended up doing, and then tried everything he could to make that happen. Thus, he chose to write the Book of Prophecies in that way so that Darkness would have believed that everything should stick to what is written in those pages. An example: when Maleficent is "trapped" into the data world in the past, MoM knew that Darkness would have helped her escaping. He even wrote into the Book the way that Maleficent had to use to go back to the real world and that she would have succeeded in that. If his intention was really to trap her, why would you write in the Book the explanations on how to escape? I think it is all part of his plan: he USED Maleficent and Darkness, so that Maleficent escaping the past would have ended as a chance for the Dandelions to travel from the far away past into the present time too. So in the end, Darkness helping Maleficent became the way for the Dandelions to come back to the real world through the Ark, the only possible way for them (since they were not real Masters, as explained by Luxu in the secret reports). To me it is logic that if MoM was fighting for the light he would have tried to do something not to let Darkness win in the end. So why writing a Book of Prophecies that ends with the failure of Light? Just for the sake of telling everyone that you were right? To me, it seems rather a way to make Darkness believe that that was the way to go. Instead, he knew that many different things and decisions would have been made so that the reality would have been different from the foretold ending. In the end, if people who loves the Light are told that Light will expire they have two options: surrender to fate or fight to change Destiny. And there has always been SOMEONE who would have accepted to go against ANY RULE in order to make Light prevail without caring of the consequences for himself... Sora. HYPOTHESIS: Maybe MoM understood that in order to save the world Light needed the "power" from another world (timeline/reality/any way you wanna call it). And what happened in the end of KH3ReMind? When Yozoora is defeated by Sora (in the TRUE ending) he claims that "maybe HIS POWERS are not yet needed". Maybe everything in MoM's plan was done so that Yozoora and Sora would meet each others in the end. Maybe a new "connection" was needed in order to save not only the worlds that we know from the KH games but also some other world out there. Throughout the games Sora is always stating "my friends are my power". Maybe the need to create new bonds and to get more of this amazing power ("follow your heart, follow the connection") is the final plan that Light has in order to defeat Darkness. We know that the worlds are disconnected because of Darkness. Maybe the best way to defeat Darkness is to have someone like Sora who is incredibly capable of creating connections in every single world/heart. He can really be the KEY that connects them all. And maybe there was the need to let Sora go into the "different reality/worldline" so that he could meet the worlds on the "other side" and create connections with them as well.