Joshua Noel and Christian Ashley dive straight into Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep while unpacking the fresh Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer—talking the Coco world reveal, the surprise anime, and why the Dandelion/mobile-era lore actually matters for what’s coming next. Joshua, the obsessive fan who can’t stop geeking out, rides shotgun and he gets hyped about Disney finally putting real money behind the franchise; Christian, the patient co-host, plays the sober counterpoint and he admits Nomura’s weird choices still Stockholm him into loving the ride. They dig into Birth by Sleep’s meat — Terra, Aqua, Ventus, and a manipulative Xehanort whose Star Wars/Star Trek vibes make the whole prequel feel like a space-opera soap opera — and they tease how the game’s themes of friendship, perspective, and balance still hit hard despite the goofy “Gorsh, the forces of darkness” moments. Joshua explains how the Dandelion dispatch, Strelitzia, and Sigurd from the dead mobile games are threaded into KH4’s setup, so the announced anime or comics could patch lore gaps for newcomers. Christian mounts a calm defense of Aqua — she isn’t a Mary Sue because she fails, sacrifices, and pays real costs — and both of them praise the triple-perspective storytelling that makes Birth by Sleep emotionally resonant. They close by promising a follow-up deep-dive (and a members-only bonus) about hoped-for KH4 worlds, cameos, and summons — basically, the kind of nerdy wishlist that keeps the fandom delightfully unhinged.

Joshua and Christian roll up their sleeves and geek out hard about Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, treating listeners to a relaxed, clever walkthrough that mixes heartfelt feels with straight-up nerd banter. Joshua plays the hype-man, buzzing about the fresh D23 reveals — Coco as a world, a Kingdom Hearts anime, and the mysterious Dandelion dispatch — while Christian brings the calmer, analytical muscle, sketching out why Disney finally seems to be taking the franchise seriously. They riff about Nomura doing Nomura things, Disney maybe leaning in on merch and media, and the community reaction when Heartless crash a Coco-style stadium reveal. Expect jokes about Spock-voiced Xehanort and Luke Skywalker energy, and a signature laugh over Goofy shouting Gorsh at the forces of darkness.

Beyond the laughs, the hosts keep it thoughtful: they map how Birth by Sleep fits ten years before KH1, why the Dandelions and mobile-game lore matter to KH4, and why the new anime could be the perfect medium to fill gaps. They tease a bonus members-only segment about desired KH4 worlds and cameos, shout out longtime supporter Frank, and gently remind listeners to rate, review, and join the community. It's hype mixed with heart — like a cosplay of a therapist who still brings a Keyblade to show-and-tell.

Takeaways:

• Joshua and Christian hype Birth by Sleep's trio dynamic—Ventus, Terra, Aqua—and how friendship, loyalty, and perspective drive the emotional core of the story.
• They nerd out about the D23 Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer, celebrating Coco as a world, the anime announcement, and Disney finally putting real money behind the franchise — hype, no cap.
• They stress that obscure mobile-game lore like the Dandelion Dispatch, Strelitzia, and Sigurd matters deeply for KH4's setup, arguing those inaccessible bits still seed future plotlines and fan theories.
• Christian unpacks Xehanort and Master of Masters' manipulation, comparing Terra's fall to an Anakin-esque tragedy and emphasizing the series' recurring philosophical question: what balance between light and dark actually means.
• They praise the game's trio-perspective storytelling for fostering empathy and showing how miscommunication and partial information enable manipulation — and they joke that if the heroes had cell phones, much of the drama would've been avoided.
• Christian gives a pointed defense of Aqua as far from a Mary Sue, noting her tangible failures, costly sacrifices, and emotional consequences that make her character hard-earned and resonant.
• They voice cautious optimism about KH4 having fewer but deeper worlds while banking on the anime and other media to expand canon, soothe fans' worries, and plug narrative holes.
• They close by stressing community vibes — shouting out supporters, urging ratings and memberships, and reminding listeners that the whole geeky mission runs on friendship and smiles.

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Are you still waiting for your new beginning for your birth by sleep? Well, if so, great news. Today we are gonna talk about it.

Kingdom Hearts birth by sleep.

As we continue getting ready for the 25 year anniversary of the Kingdom Hearts franchise, we're gonna be talking about Kingdom Hearts birth by sleep mainly, but we're also going to touch on the dandelions that are mentioned in Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer that was just announced as well as maybe what we hope to see in that and some other. I don't know, there's going to be Kingdom Hearts anime. What? I am Joshua Noel, probably the biggest Kingdom Hearts fan that most of my friends know.

If not, I'm upset they haven't introduced me to their other Kingdom Hearts fans.

But here with the one and only Christian Ashley, the man who puts up with me geeking out so much about this and joins me, I think, because he likes it, but also to humor me. I think.

Yeah, that's part of it. Yeah.

A little bit of both. I think it's probably a little bit. A little bit of both.

Before we get into the Kingdom Hearts fun and craziness, we are going to talk about some of what we've been geeking out out on lately. A little hard for me because mostly geeking out on Kingdom Hearts. I just had a grandparent pass away and that's my comfort thing.

You know, I don't like most people's comfort shows, but like, no, it's my comfort thing.

Yes.

Like I'm reading the manga. Then at work I have the YouTube up that's going through all of like chapter by chapter what happens in all the games.

And then when I'm not doing that, I'm playing the games. Coco. I've been watching Coco a lot. If I can geek out on a single movie, it's that. Christian, what about you, man?

So they want to get Gavin. Yeah. The newest Batman animated film based off of Nightfall Part 1 came out and I really enjoyed it.

It's definitely a lot more gruesome than I expected. But you know what, at the end of the day, I mean, if there was a storyline to do that for, that's the one.

All right. I'd check that. I usually do like the animated Batman movies.

So with that, if you usually like our show, like I usually like animated Batman films, then you should rate and review wherever you're listening, watching, et cetera, because those help the algorithms think we're important, have other people find the show helps us continue to do this. And you know, it's hard to do this when no one watches or listens. So it makes us feel good when people do.

And you tricking the algorithms helps us feel good. Just a chain of events that's really that we're really grateful for. Also really grateful for all of our financial supporters.

Today I'm shouting out Frank Troglauer. Frank, you're awesome. Thank you so much for your support, man. We couldn't do this without supporters like you listeners.

If you want to be shouted out like Frank, if you want to be like Frank, you can become an official member. Get your own shout out by becoming an official member of Systematic Geekology on our website. The link is in the show's description.

Same website, you can get extra content for free. You can buy merch, you can leave a one time financial gift. There's a lot of stuff to do without becoming a member.

So it's not a members only website, but we do appreciate people become members too. A different link down in the show notes will have a playlist of all of our Kingdom Hearts episodes.

So lots of links down there, lots of ways to follow the geeky goodness and just be a part of what we're doing here. And we appreciate all of you for just being a part and geeking out with us. You know, we're not just doing this to be watched.

We enjoy interacting and doing stuff together with one another as well as with you all. So thank you. And now it's time to jump into the magic of Kingdom Hearts. Kingdom Hearts.

So Christian, a lot of people turns out because of D23 and there being a show about to be announced and a lot of new merchants have been dropped, are just now realizing hey, this is about to be a big deal or trying to get into it for the first time, that kind of thing. Getting ready with all the hype.

So for if someone's watching this podcast and they're like, man, I don't know what Kingdom Hearts is first off, I'm sorry because man, I don't know how to explain that to you, but I'm going to have Christian try.

So for people who are just now hearing the hype or just now getting involved with Kingdom Hearts, Christian, what is Kingdom Hearts as a franchise, what's it about and why are we we doing this 25 year anniversary buildup?

I'm trying to remember what I said last time you asked me this. I'll get pretty close, I guess. Do you like Disney movies? Do you like jrpg anime nonsense? Then congratulations, I have the perfect franchise for you.

Will you understand a single word that's said at times, it depends. Sometimes things are pretty simple and clean. Sometimes really not the complete opposite. Other times you're going to be having issues. Thank you.

You're welcome. Issues with what's going on. Who's that guy? He said it was name was this. But he's also there. Another character named this.

But it's okay because this person has the heart of this person. You know what? Don't worry about it. Just accept what's on the screen. That's what makes this work. There is a cohesive storyline behind things.

If you squint, if you. You do the work, but you don't have to have a PhD in it.

Sometimes you can just see, you know, Goofy clowning on, you know, some black, heartless little things that are trying to destroy the world, you know, it's fine, you know.

Yeah, I. I love it, especially when I'm around normal people because now I have a steam deck and I can play it while I'm at, like, family functions. And I'm like, I'm around normal people and I'm like, sometimes I forget how funny this is.

Like, I'm just sitting there and I'm like, man, playing Kingdom Hearts 2. I'm at some of the good parts if you know, you know, and I just had to laugh because, like, I'm with everybody else.

I'm like, man, if anybody could hear what I was, like, doing right now and they just heard Goofy go gor shits the forces of darkness.

Yep. You know what?

I understand that this is ridiculous, but I love it. Also, if this is your first time ever getting into it, you're watching all the videos and at some point you're like, man, is everyone Xehanort?

No, half of everyone is Sora.

Yeah.

I will say, as a whole, it is just about Disney fun. And it's like, whatever. I think a large part of the franchise is trying to ask, what does it mean to exist? What does it mean to be?

So you have a lot of questions of, like, are we our hearts? Are we our body? Are we our memories? That kind of stuff. Like, thematically, it's a lot about that kind of stuff. There is just Disney fun.

And at the heart of all of it really is just friendship. Is our power. Smiles defeat the darkness.

I feel like, you know, that's pretty much if you were to sum up, like, the point of it, what's interesting to me, and I might bring back the Kingdom key little little thing. I was writing on some something for a while. I forgot where it is.

But at my grandmother's funeral, my dad was actually talking about a story with his younger sister who died 35 years ago. And sorry, I promise this is relevant, but I actually had to write a note down because he was talking about how someone would go to the church.

There was this older man went to church once who was just, whatever, grumpy.

I don't know why he was at the church, but he saw this little girl who was his sister just smiling ear to ear with her Bible set up on her wheelchair because she can't move and is having a hard time breathing. And she's happy as can be. And how much that convicted people of like, wow, she can be smiling.

Why?

What do I have to be so upset about? And my dad said something about like, that smile pushed back the darkness. And I'm like, you know, my dad's not a Kingdom Hearts fan.

It's a much more serious moment. But I think that really is the heart of Kingdom Hearts is like a smile really can push back the darkness. Friendship really is powerful.

Yes, it's cheesy, but I think it's true. It's why Kingdom Hearts resonates with me so much. It's why I actually do care about these games a lot.

Even though, yes, I know that if I had the volume on and everyone heard Gorsh, it's the Forces of Darkness, everybody would be laughing at me. Both things can be true. So we had a new trailer. Talk about some of the hype. There's a new Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer dropped at D23.

For those who don't know, D23 is like the big event Disney does to announce things. Opening day, they had a trailer that looked like it was Coco. You had a lot of people like, ah.

And then once Heartless started showing up, you could hear the whole stadium abrupt in a roar of whoa. We finally got a world announced, Coco. Which is funny because we released Episode where I said, I don't think they'll announce anything after D23.

So I was wrong. They did announce a world. We got some info and there's going to be an anime. I got a lot more than I thought I was going to get out of the D23.

Did you expect to get this much out of it? Like, yes, you did expect it. I thought we might get a world. I didn't think we were getting an anime.

I expected, yeah, the world I was expecting. The anime had been rumored for years now.

Whether or not it was actually going to happen, I don't know if I Thought it would, but it is, and I'm happy for it. And of course, Nomura being Nomura, has mentioned that it's not like an adaptation of the events of the game.

It's probably going to be something that expands the lore of the game in a different way because the man can't stop himself. And you know what? I'm fine with that because you know what? He Stockholm me into loving the way he does things.

But yeah, I was expecting just the world and I was so very happy with the trailer there that we got.

But yeah, what was really surprising to me is it seems like Disney's finally realized they have something that makes them money, like a lot of money, and they're starting to embrace it rather than to being afraid of it.

That's what has me excited.

Because you'll see, yes, you see very little representation of this in the parks. Like you might see like a Sora pin at Disney World or something like that. But like no merch or anything like that that I can recall.

Maybe that's changed since the last time I was at Disney World. But it feels like they've recognized, oh, people care about this a lot. We saw how they reacted when we put this in front of their faces at D23.

So maybe we might get even more from this franchise.

Yeah, yeah. Disney has said something along the lines of we're actually going to start putting money behind this, which I hope they do.

I think the thing is that I hope Disney realizes, even though I despise it, Kingdom Hearts has a large following. And Kingdom Hearts fans are freaks because, like, we're constantly like, we're getting made fun of.

Like the creator of Kingdom Hearts just constantly does, like, we complain about something, he will do. That very thing we complain about just despite us. And we're still fans.

So Disney has a pretty loyal base that they're allowed to piss off, apparently. So I don't see why they wouldn't do whatever.

The only thing I am a little bit worried about is like, the world we know that Disney directly got involved with in previous games tend to be the worst worlds because they're like, no, we want it to have the. The exact full music number of Frozen. And I'm like, stop. That's the wrong vibe. Guys, y' all gotta chill. Just let.

Yeah, as much as he annoys me, let the creator just make what he's been making, man. Like, let him do his thing.

But it'd be nice if we could hang out with Elsa and actually get story behind why that's happening rather than going to this mysterious ice tower or whatever.

Yeah, that world was infuriating.

Yeah.

Speaking of, we are going to do for a bonus later for people who want to go on the website become official members. We're going to talk about what world we expect want, as well as other like cameos, summons, et cetera.

So we're talking a little bit more about that now that kinoarts4 is actually on the horizon.

I would say the other part of this that I really appreciate is choosing Coco as a world. I think we said something about this.

I don't know was in the last couple, but definitely sometime before on another episode, that Coco makes perfect sense in the fact that we don't know exactly where Sora is at living wise, given the events of using the power of Waking in three. So having him in the Land of the Dead from Coco made perfect sense.

So I'm very happy that they're going with that because otherwise it'd be like, you know, Hades again and all that mess. So, okay, we've done this before. Let's. Let's do something new. And I like how they're taking this.

I think too, something important that Maura mentioned is that there's going to be fewer worlds in this. I've heard people say, like up to five or six, and there's a part of me that goes, no, I want more.

But then there's a part of me that goes, well, maybe they're doing a birth by sleep kind of thing. And we can have multiple characters like a Riku or a Kyrie or a Mickey, and maybe even Donald and Goofy solo for a time on multiple worlds.

So we see different events of the movie, like what we see in this game we're about to talk about in a bit. So I could get behind that.

I'm a little torn mostly because, like, I feel that way about you. If I believed him.

The thing is Kingdom Hearts 3, for those who remember, he did also say for Kingdom Hearts 3, there was going to be less worlds, but they were going to be bigger. And like, yeah, there was technically less world, but like one or two less worlds. Like, oh, no. So I'm not. I don't know. I'm.

Until we actually have details, I'm just not trying not speculate too much. I don't want to set my expectations. But also, I think that's a good reason why they included the anime in the announcement.

Because it's like, hey, we might have fewer worlds in the game. We don't know how many worlds the Enemy is going to go see and, like, they could do more with that.

And since Disney's putting more into it, we might see more games, we might see more other forms of media. They mentioned for these, we might get a Kingdom Hearts comic book. I might get Will into this. So, you know, I'm like, I'm waiting to see.

Like, I'm like, I'm not disappointed. I'm not whatever about that there being less worlds. I'm a little.

If the only thing that I'm even a little concerned about is, like, because I'm super adhd.

Part of why Kingdom Hearts work so well with me is that, like, we have all these different worlds and I'm like, completely changing environments all the time, and it's hard for me to not stay focused, which is the opposite problem that I have with literally anything else. Kingdom Hearts is very ADHD friendly. Yeah. I love that they announced Coco and we see Hades. Like, it seems like they're thematically gonna keep it.

They're not just doing Kingdom Hearts 3. What's the newest stuff? Like, they're actually trying to pick worlds that make sense.

I actually watched the full D23 panel, and that's why I have a lot of thoughts of what worlds might be included based off what they said. And I'm like, it sounds like they actually put more into this. Like, Kingdom Hearts 3.

I think they held off so long waiting for Pixar, that when they finally got the go ahead, they just kind of put something out and they had a lot of loose ends they wanted to tie up, and they tied them up. So even though it took so long, Kingdom Hearts 3 kind of felt rushed to me still. And I don't think we're going to have that with this.

It seems like they're actually putting what they need to into it. So I'm excited. I think it'll be fun. I'm really excited about the anime, and I feel like no one's talking that much about that.

And I'm like, wait a minute. Do you know how many worlds we could get in an anime series, though? Like, we could get a lot of Kingdom Hearts world, right?

So I'm excited for all that. The trailer had me pumped. There was a lot of stuff that I was like, ooh, interesting.

I wanted to go back and touch on stuff that we left out of last episode because the trailer made it seem like those mobile games we talked about, the last Kingdom Hearts episode are in fact going to be important. We have some people name dropped. It's some stuff that we were like, okay, let's make sure.

Because we didn't actually talk about some of this because there's so much to cover in the mobile games, like so much lore that we couldn't possibly talk about at all. So briefly, Christian, we hear Sora mention or holler out Strelitzia Sigurd. And he talks about the Dandelion Dispatch. The Dandelion.

I don't remember if it's clan group or like what it's called. What do you remember about the Dandelion from the mobile game? The Kingdom Hearts cheese stuff. For those who don't know what that was.

I mean, Strelitzia was a member of the Dandelions and I think she was actually chosen by the Master of Masters for that position.

Yeah, she was.

Once again, it's been a while.

She was originally chosen by him to be one of the leaders and then one of the other ones thought they killed her or something, tried to get rid of her. Yeah, clearly that didn't work out.

And she is in fact the younger sister of Marluja, real name without the X.

Starts with an L, I think Lauriam.

Or something like that.

Yeah. But it's funny because they also both have a connection to Brain and the old in the mobile games too. So I don't know. But yes, I do.

I think it's interesting that they're both her and Sigurd. I believe both have ties to the Dandelions Master of Masters. I think I know he chose Strelitzia.

I don't remember if he specifically chose Sigurd or not. I think he did.

So what's interesting is when for those who watched the last episode, you know, Master, Master create all these clans, turned them all against each other on purpose, etc. Because he wanted to start the kingdom the Keyblade War. Also, I sometimes get confused the motives of the Master Master and Xehanort.

But that's because the Master Master manipulated Xehanort. And I think it's a lot less, a lot more ambiguous with the Master of Master's real motives are.

So I think we'll see that explored more in future stuff.

But when he was choosing all the clans, the Dandelions were supposed to be the ones that after the Keyblade War would come back so that there were still Keyblade Masters when the Master Master returns after the Keyblade War. So Kingdom Hearts 4 set after the Keyblade War, there is the Dandelion dispatch. So we know that at least that part of his plan kind of worked.

Out Strelitzia is there, as well as Sigurd, who were part of that. And they were supposed to be the ones that are the keepers of light, mind you.

Again, Master of Masters, we're not really sure if he's like, for the light light or for the dark.

We know he's a bad guy, but it's much like Xehanort was kind of manipulated into seeing, like, hey, we're all born from darkness into this world of light. We don't fit with the light.

For those who don't know if you the dark road stuff, Xehanort felt as though the light were being tyrants trying to completely get rid of the dark. And he was like, we need balance.

Which also is still just really funny because we're gonna talk about this with Birth by Sleep, but Xehanort ends up being played voice acted by the guy who's. What's it? What's it Spock from. Yeah, yeah. So Spock from Star Trek.

Master Ericus, who is like his brother slash foil is Mark Hamill from Star wars, which was definitely on purpose. And it's just so funny. So Star Trek Star wars feud started here, actually, with Keaton Martz, but no. So Xehanort's.

But like, what he felt like was like in order to get balance, we needed dark to prevail a little bit because it's not just all about the light. And again, we're going to talk more about that when we're talking about Birth by Sleep in a minute. So this is a good segue.

So what Xehanort does, really, he wasn't just like evil. He was trying to find balance in the world and kind of got misled by Master of Masters.

And we're not sure what the Master of Masters motives really were, but we do know he set up the Dandelion so that we would have Keyblade wielders who are the Keepers of Light after the Keyblade War, which is exactly what we're seeing in this trailer.

So all those mobile game stuff that no one have really played that you can't access anymore except for by videos on YouTube, are extremely important to what happens next. Great stuff.

I'm hoping, even though they said the anime is going to be original material, I'm hoping at least, even if it is original material, maybe it's a character that takes place in that time frame because the time of the mobile games is referred to as the fairy tale era. So it's like distant past. So I'm hoping maybe at least it takes place in that era.

And we can get some holes filled in with the anime before we all get Nikita March four and are like, yeah, we don't remember those mobile games that no one played. So what's happening? So hopefully we get some more. If you do want more though, you can't play those old games.

But There is a YouTube channel that I really like. I'm about to look up to mention to everybody.

Mind you, what's funny is like in her description or their description for their YouTube series, they're like, don't watch unless you've actually played all the games, because it should be experienced as a game first. And I'm like, well, can't play these games, so not doing that. Everglow. Everglow has a series of YouTubes.

It's like 171 episodes that explains all of the history of Kingdom Hearts in a chronological order. Really great series.

So if you want to go back and learn more about the Chi, Kingdom Hearts Chi or the Dark Roads or all that, Everglow I think is the way to go. Now, Christian, your favorite Kingdom Hearts game, we have about five minutes to talk about. Just kidding.

I assume that this is going to be the one that Christian talks the most of because I know you actually really love Birth by Sleep. So, Christian, this is like the first real prequel to Kingdom Hearts. Truly an amazing game.

Also, for the record, an amazing short light novel, if you get the novels. But it's like 500 pages. But it's called a light novel. Whatever. Where does this fit in the timeline and what is the premise of Birth by Sleep?

This takes place 10 years before the events of Kingdom Hearts 1. So Sora, Riku and Kairi are all about 4 years old at this point in time.

Nowhere close to being involved with any of the events of the games, except they show up in the game in some way, shape or form. And it's actually pretty fun for that part. But we have essentially the Keyblade master of our time. Eraqus is training three students.

We have Terra, Aqua and Ventus. Terra, of course, will be our Anakin Skywalker for the rest of the time that he exists. Aqua will be the competent one.

Ventus will be the one who looks like Sora. And they are all in the process of their Keyblade mastery training.

And on the day that Aqua and Terra are going to be, you know, like, tested for sure, like whether they become masters or not, that's when Spock Xehanort shows up to, you know, become Emperor Palpatine in this game for Terra for Anakin and teach him that, you know, it's good for him to give into his anger and rage and you trust that darkness a little bit more.

And that causes all the problems that we eventually get into the games without actually, like, them, trying to track down certain things of, like, okay, what's happening in this world? How are the heartless. Excuse me, the unversed, showing up in this world who serve as, like, our heartless in this series and the like.

Yeah, the unversed, I think, are weirdly.

Of all the Kingdom Hearts enemies, the ones that I think bother me the most because their whole concept is, like, it's from strong, negative emotions. And they defined that as, like, anger and all this, like, sadness, whatever. And I'm like, sometimes those emotions are actually a good thing.

So I'm not sure how I like about the fact that we're, you know, causing those to be embodied entities that we have to fight. Because I'm like, you know, actually. And I know I'm thinking too hard for this game where Goofy goes gorsh. It's the forces of darkness.

But also the game's clearly trying to get me to think hard, so I think it's kind of on them. Well, I guess my fault. But is this where we see Scala.

For the first time as a world they're in the.

I wasn't sure if the Land of Departure was the same thing. I always get confused about that.

I'm pretty sure we don't see Scala in this one. Once again, I'm on track to replay it as we speak, but I'm not there yet.

Yeah, yeah.

I think the Land of Departure religiously, like someone else.

Yeah.

So the land where we're all training, I'm pretty sure it's a different land, but Master Eraqus and Master Xehanort, since we're doing this in chronological order, I feel like it's okay to kind of dig through this. Whether it was this game or not, I get confused.

They're both from a different world that's called Scala ad Caelum, something like that which we might see in Kingdom Hearts 4. We definitely saw it in the end of Kingdom Hearts 3. They're both from that world. I'm just trying to get backstory.

So the main characters of this game is Ventus, Aqua, Terra. As you mentioned, we start with Ventus. Again, I'm going through chronologically.

Not sure what game this came from, but Xehanort actually tries to drain the darkness out of Ventus because originally he was trying to turn him Evil. Because if you remember, Ventus was actually from those older mobile games. He's in those as a character.

Master Xehanort tries to get him to turn dark so that he can help him bring balance. Because again, the world's being ruled by light and it should be balanced light and dark.

He couldn't get Ventus to turn dark, so he tries to drain all the darkness out of him.

He says, yeah, we try to drain.

All the darkness out of them. So that's how we get Vanitas, who for some reason looks like Zora. I still think they're just trying to say that's a coincidence.

I'm a little confused on that one.

No, it's because when it is explained in the game, it is when Xeno was doing the nonsense to Ventus that made him, you know, pure heart esque and created Vanitas, taking his darkness away from him. Ventus's heart connected with Sora and thus Vanitas also. Pretty sure. Yes.

Was also connected in the same way that, you know, the nominate says because Kairi, as a princess of heart, can't have darkness in her, but because of the nonsense that happened in one exists even though she shouldn't exist.

Yeah. Well, it's kind of like how Sora, me, and Christian are all Sora.

Yeah.

And yes, so is Will, But Will hasn't even played the game. But he's already Sora. Riku might be Sora. Who knows?

I mean, look at that hair. I mean, he's pretty much.

Oh, man. So, yeah. Okay, that makes sense.

So when you start this game, though, and this is where I'm like, Xehanort is a little bit more complicated than just like, you know, Vader or the Emperor. Like, he's definitely evil. He's working for darkness, but he sees Ventus and is like, he actually felt bad.

And he tried to get Master Eraqus to train him to be a keyblade wielder and care for him because he didn't want to just let him die. And that's where you're like, I am so conflicted because, like, look at the guy. I should have put a. Do I have an image of Xehanort on here anywhere?

Yeah. Look at this guy.

If you ever had a more obviously evil man in your life, it would.

Be like the Emperor from old Star Wars. It's like, oh, no, I pity Luke. Let me help him. And you're like, okay, this is clearly the bad guy.

But that's. That's all. Birth by sleep is. That's all that. Birth by Sleep is. And that's why I love it so much because it's just Star wars and Star Trek.

Spock is there.

Yes. But it's more Star wars than Star Trek.

Absolutely.

As I love both for different reasons.

Absolutely. And it does get at the whole thing of, like, real balance is actually not having both light and dark, but everything being used for good.

Which I do think to me, I think Master Eric is kind of less out. So we get who Ventus is. He plays through. He's kind of this person who is damage learned to be Kiba Gooder. He's younger than the others.

It's basically a. Hey, do you want to see why Sora is Sora? We're going to include some stuff about Sora here.

Terra, to me, is one of the more interesting characters of the three because he has a little bit of dart and sentiment. He fights and you see that.

And I actually feel like Master Eraqus fails him because I think he probably could have used that dark for good because we see that with Riku later on. But instead he gets denied the master. How dare you not grant me the rank of master. He yells like anakin. And then it's not Star Wars, I promise.

And that's how Xehanort kind of finds a way in. It's like, oh, wait, he doesn't see this in you, but I see this in you. Again, like the emperor, it's. Yeah, like if Spock was the emperor,.

Let the hate flow through you. Terror.

Truly. Does he actually say that though? Like, because I. I think there's a chance that might actually be said.

No.

It's a little on the nose, similar.

To lines mentioned here. I'm just anecdotal, but it involves Kingdom Hearts.

Years ago, when Team 4 Star were playing this on their video game channel, Lenny pretty much line for line said exactly what Xehanort was going to say before Xehanort said it because he's such a big Star wars guy. It's like, okay, well, yeah. So looking back, I can always laugh at that because he predicted pretty much everything.

It was not that hard not to predict it, but it's still pretty. Like, okay, you said word for word what Xehanort just said.

Yeah. Which Nomura's been open that he's a big Star Wars F. We're probably getting Star wars and Kingdom Hearts 4.

Oh, yeah. And that's not a criticism. Like you. If you're gonna like have something in there that's influencing, like, own up to it.

Listen, this might be for like the bonus Thing, Like, I might should be saving this, but, like. So I'm pretty sure we're gonna see Star wars and Kingdom Hearts 4. What I'm curious about is, are we gonna see it in the anime?

They've done Star wars anime before, but also, I don't know if they want to keep it separate and lean more Disney. But I think it would be. You'd get a lot of people interested if they do a little Star wars episode, you know? Okay, so I got Ventus. I got Tara, Aqua.

I don't know much about Aqua's backstory. Aqua's our girl. We're doing a whole episode on Aqua at the end of the year for the faces behind us, and Chris and I are going to love it.

So we're not going to focus too much on her here because we're going to do a whole episode later. I will say, though, like, she starts off, she cares about her friends.

She's making the thing about this the star fruit that people share that's like, links you together forever with friendship. And, like, all the way through, what she's doing is following her friends, trying to save them.

She is the one going after the lost sheep, not Master Eraqus, who, in my opinion, should have been the one going after the lost sheep. Instead, it's Aqua, their friend.

Yes.

Who even though sees what they do and how it's actually helping Maleficent and all these bad guys say, no, these are my friends.

And even at the end of everything else of this game and seeing how Anakin fell for the emperor and seeing how Ventus was so naive that he accidentally, constantly was letting evil happen, Aqua literally sends her own soul to the realm of darkness to save them both. And you're like, I want more of her backstory. We got a lot with the other two.

She's.

Whatever happened with her, like, because I want to imitate that.

Yeah. We don't get too much. Even Tara. We don't get too much on his backstory as well. I mean, he's a huge focal point.

Like, they're both huge chocolate points. And you're right. We'll focus more on Aqua. And there's a reason she's our girl, but, yeah, it's because she does what she's supposed to do.

And even though she does what she's supposed to do, things still go poorly. So it's not her fault.

Yeah. So I have answers for this.

But as someone who has made accusations of this about several other characters, I want to hear your defense for our girl, Aqua. Why is she not a Mary Sue?

Why is she not a Mary Sue? Well, because she fails. Mary Sues typically don't fail.

And if they do, it's some minor thing of like, oh, I chipped a nail, or, oh, I didn't get the relationship I wanted for a time. But I'm going to get it anyways because, you know, the person writing this is obsessed with something like that. Like, she struggles.

Like, she becomes the Keyblade Master, but that costs her friendships. That costs relationships with people that are very close with her. So getting what she wants doesn't mean she gets everything that she wants.

So that causes friction there. It's like her as well, like, going into these other worlds. Like, she doesn't understand things that's going on.

Like, obviously, she gets the better part of the deal when it comes to Maleficent compared to Tara, because he doesn't get the Maleficent that's, you know, giant dragon trying to murderize people. She gets the easier part of things. So from that side of things, it can make it look like she is, but she's also not as strong as he is.

She's not as fast as the rest of them are. She is more on the mage side of things. So there are limitations to her in that regard.

And as well, the huge thing at the end, once again, is she fails to get her objective. And it is still possible to write a Mary sue where that happens, but it's not Aquaman.

Yeah, yeah, she's not that strong. She's a good magic user. But to me, my actual defense, why she's not.

Because a lot of people do actually kind of levy this against her, like, oh, she's too much of whatever. But I'm like, no, truly.

I think that, like, if you were a perfect character, had no flaws, the very beginning of the game would have been her confronting Master Eraqus with what he did to her friends. This is a game that's all about friendship. She did this whole thing about, oh, I'm going to be there with you guys forever.

And what happens when she sees him start to show darkness, get denied the Mark of mastery? Finches is the one that comforts him. They go off. They're both, like, having their whole butt hurt moments. And she's like, I'm going to stay here.

I'm going to rank and file. Whatever you say, Master Eraqus. And I'm like, no, that would have been the moment that you said, f everything. I'm going to be with my friend.

And then Terra would have never been sent off in the first place.

So I'm kind of like, no, a perfect character would have not have let him be alone to be manipulated in that moment because it was clear he needed help, he needed his friends, you know, that's why I'm like, nope.

Yes.

And I do like that. That's part of what the game does. Sorry we're rambling a little bit, but we're both. We love this game. It was going to happen. I love that.

Because you mentioned they go to the different worlds. That's what Kingdom Hearts does. Right? So they go to, like, the dwarves and Snow White, you go to stitch, etc.

And if you play it, depending on how you play it, but like, Tara usually goes to the worlds first. And it's easy to be manipulated because he comes first and he sees Maleficent before she's the dragon. It's like, oh, this is just a lady.

Her arguments make sense. Sure. He goes and he sees, hey, we're in space. These people want to capture that little alien that's cussing at people and causing chaos.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. Like, the. What he sees. If you only got his perspective, you're like, no, it makes sense. Like, he wasn't out trying to be a bad guy.

He.

Every world he went to, you were like, oh, no. I might have also thought those were the good guys.

And when Ventus comes along, you're like, he probably should have seen what was happening a little bit, but he was a kid. Because you can see him coming in right after. He's like, wait a minute.

Yes.

No, what you did was bad. But no, he's my friend. That doesn't make sense. He's naive. And by the time Aqua gets there, everything's already falling apart.

And I think that actually does speak to a lot when you think of perspectives. Sorry. And these games do it on purpose. I don't think this is my fault.

But, like, even as Christians, you know, like, I know people who didn't grow up in the church, and it's a lot harder for them because they see the world and they're like, no, it's not as black and white as you guys say. And they struggle a little bit more and it's. You have to learn how to be there with people.

And a lot of people who grew up in the church, their whole lives, they're just seeing stuff. They're like, well, this is all obviously evil. How could you possibly fall for this?

And I'm like, well, you didn't see what they Saw you didn't go to that part of their lives when they were there. And I think that perspective thing that the game does and allowing you to play three different perspectives makes it so much more powerful.

Like, I actually think there's some great truths to learn from that. Yeah.

I mean, absolutely. It helps identify why they do what they do in these worlds with the information presented in front of them, they're going to make this decision.

And that's one of the important things of this game, is learning. Okay. Just because you have experienced something doesn't make it the absolute truth.

What is the absolute truth is putting these experiences together to judge against the events that happen.

So if we'd actually talked and said, hey, you know, this evil queen here isn't pretty great, or, you know, the stepsisters are doing this or what have you, we could go, oh, okay. So you saw this. I saw this. So, like, which one of them is true? They can't both be true. We have to work on this together.

And yet they don't because of the friction happening between them.

And this is when we reveal this episode was actually an advertisement for Verizon. If they all had Verizon, they would have had signal, could have texted each other, and no one would have fell for darkness. So go to Verizon.

Get the family deal. I'm just kidding. This is not. It's not where this is going, but it does make me think, you know, communication makes things a lot easier.

We live in a world where, like, stuff like this shouldn't happen. I should be able to just call Kristen and see what's going on. Why'd you do this?

What's happening?

Yeah, but that was my first thought, was like, wait a minute. Why didn't they have a cell phone? Like, I literally was like. I was like, yeah, could have called.

Him and been like, hey, same thing here, too.

What happened is what makes this so easy for them to be manipulated is that there is someone who is watching everything that's happening and can then play them off of each other. We get the Xehanort figure here doing that.

So when Aqua gets into Sleeping Beauty, says Tara gave this girl up to be used by this evil witch who can turn into a dragon. What's going on with this? That's not the terror I know. And yet he did this. I can't deny it.

And then you get, you know, Xeno showing up on the terrorist side of things, and you've heard what these guys are doing. They're undoing the good work that you've done like they don't trust you, they don't believe in you. Turn to the dark side.

That's what happens when you don't have the full story and when you have someone who does and wants to abuse it for their own intentions.

Yeah, yeah. Knowledge is good. Also you should read the secret report throughout this game. So much lore in there.

I think too one of the big like climaxes of the story that's really telling that goes along with what you're saying. So like they're going world to world. Terra keeps getting manipulated.

He's slowly falling more into the darkness without realizing it because he thinks he's helping the right people, but he's not. And Akko keeps coming in at the very end after Ventus. And it's like what he's doing is clearly evil. This is a giant fire breathing demon dragon.

You know, like what does he do it here? Like Pete, this guy's obviously a bad guy all the way through up until like. Like I think it's.

Which is why they selected the worlds and everything so well for this game.

When you get to the point where Terra's back and Master Eraqus, played by Mark Hamill has a Luke Skywalker in the last Jedi moment when he's like I have to kill my pupil. I see what's happening. He's fully turning to the darkness and none of us.

It's more justifiable.

Yeah, yeah, but. And he's going to literally kill Terra so that he doesn't turn to darkness and Master Xehanort doesn't prevail. And the forces of darkness. Gorsh.

The forces of darkness are going to prevail. Try has to stop that.

Yeah.

And Aqua comes in and sees Terra fighting Master Eraqus and it's like clearly he's a bad guy. Just the way they set things up so well. Just such a story wise so well put together.

If nothing else, you guys need to read the light novel for this one.

It speaks to as well. On Erica's side of things is that he trusts his friends so much that he believes everything he says in Xehanort.

And that is built off of what was once a true friendship and has now been corrupted over time to where he can't imagine that this isn't what's happening right now. Because why would Xehanort ever betray him? Why would he ever do anything wrong? It has to be Tara. So based on false information he does what he does.

So like it's justifiable with the information he has. It's still not right. But we understand why he makes that decision based on a certain other character.

Well, caricature of that character in a certain film. Yeah.

That's where I'm going to flesh out a little bit more from the Dark Road stuff that I'm not sure we fleshed out or not last episode, but. So Master Eraqus and Master Xehanort together and Scala, they're like besties.

They're training with Odin and for some reason, Norse gods that are Keyblade wielders. It's Kingdom Hearts, guys. Just leave it alone. But they're training to be Keyblade masters.

They both get the mark of mastery, and then as they go separate ways, Master Eraqus is selected to be the one that's going to train the new people. That's when why Aqua Terra go to him. He's the. He's the trainer. He's the Jedi Council, whatever.

Master Xehanort goes off to all these different worlds, and what he sees is like, all the worlds are actually born in darkness. It's all false light. And he's like, I actually want. He comes to the realization. Air quotes. He needs to make that realized.

He needs to put that out in the air, get rid of the false light, have true balance between dark and light. Because he goes to all the worlds, and what he sees convinces him of that. That was while they were apart.

So as far as Master Eric is known, Master Xehanort is still the one that was like, brother to him, that trained to be a Keyblade Master. They both passed the mark of mastery. There must not be any darkness in him.

He has good reason to think that even though if you look at the guy, this guy's evil, right? Like, come on. Every time he shows up, suddenly a darkness is there. You're like, ah, come on, man. But put that aside. They were like brothers.

We don't judge on appearance, but, you.

Know, they were like brothers. Sometimes you got to be fair.

If Christian and I, we both went through the same like we did, and if we for some reason were in another world and we both went to the same seminary, then we split ways, and I just, you know, pastor at church and teaching new students. And Christian went out and saw the world went. Not real Christianity. Crusades had it right.

If he doesn't come and tell me that, I'm still assuming he's the same Christian I learned with. Even if all of a sudden he went bald and started looking like Lex Luthor. I don't know.

You know, like, if you have that relationship, it's easy to be blindsided, which is interesting in a game that's all about friendship being the power that friendship is what causes Master Eric is to be blinded to how evil Master Xehanort became. It's kind of interesting.

Yes.

So sorry. There's just so much to worry in Birth by Sleep, guys. Just so much. We might pause here and make this a two parter if Christian's open to that.

All right, so we're at the one climax. There's a whole nother ending that we have to go through with these three characters.

More plot points we want to get to and how it leans into the other game. So we have a lot more to talk about. But time cost us. Like, literally it cost us money because of how podcasting works.

So we're gonna stop here, start a second episode. So you guys check us out the next one and we'll be happy to see you there.

But in the meantime, for our Star wars episode, after the next episode, we will have a bonus question. So tune in next episode where we have more Kingdom Hearts and we'll talk about that.

What other worlds characters and stuff we anticipate for Kingdom Hearts 4. For now though, we're gonna have to do two rounds of recommendations. Christian. I know it's a tough one.

I'll go first since I'm just throwing this on you now. I recommend Lanterns. It's a great TV series. I can't give it enough praise.

I don't know enough about the, like, comics and stuff to see if it's accurate or not. I'm just like a guy watching superhero show and I'm like, this is fun. I'm having a good time.

So I wish there was less language in it because I really want my.

Parents for the most part. Like, I get it. They're like, not like the most objectionable changes in the world. Like, I can see what they're going for at the very least.

But I'm enjoying it too. And I agree with you on the list.

Are we just going to like, double down on a recommendation, Everyone go watch Lanterns now?

Well, I can, but also the other day I was just thinking about games that I never beat as a kid because they were just so hard.

And I'm never going to beat it at this time because my retron 5 died years ago and I the only other way would be to emulate it on a computer illegally. And I'm not opposed to that. I'd say, but not at the moment. But Spider man in the X Men arcades Revenge.

If you want something that will be like the definition of Nintendo Hard back in the day from the Senesce. It's a fun game.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Indeed. Also, while we're. We're not going to recommend things that are illegal, we would not recommend. Don't play.

Don't play that new Chain of Memories re Chain of Memories garbage. Get the original. Get a ROM of that if.

If you know, we're just saying what we wouldn't recommend is doing that because it's illegal, but definitely would be a lot better than what is legal playing Retreat of Memories.

Also would not recommend getting the Melon Mix where you can play some of those old Kingdom Hearts DS games and it be actually tolerable saying I wouldn't recommend that but it, you know, I mentioned it for some reason. No, I don't know.

Never.

Wouldn't. Wouldn't condone that. How dare you suggest I would condone. For now though, guys, rate. Review our show wherever you get your podcast.

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