invigoraide:

Up until now, the light/darkness dichotomy was only ever
something I interpreted as being a plot-specific force within the narrative. Sure,
we had characters verbally telling us that darkness is related to negative
emotions, light is related to friendship and positivity, etc. but beyond characters
getting powered up for battle after verbally making those connections (“My friends
are my power,” basically anything that comes out of Ansem SOD’s mouth), we don’t
really get a chance to see what that means.

A Fragmentary Passage connected the emotions to the forces
in a much more obvious way, for me at
least. I’ll never forget playing the mirror level that has Aqua’s inner
monologue going the whole time and realizing that, holy shit, this game is
about depression! And then we see the E3 trailer from this year. For her to get
Norted, we know she had to succumb to The Darkness, and because we have her experience
in AFP as a background, we know how she got to that point and exactly what she was feeling when it
happened. (Yes, AFP ended on a more hopeful note, but … I still think this
is probably what happened).

I’m playing through all the main games again, and suddenly,
the rest of the series has a LOT more context. The Xehanort/Eraqus
arguments get a lot more nuance. Honestly, I think Xehanort has a little bit of
a point? Light and Darkness (ie: positive emotions and negative emotions)
existing in a balance seems WAY healthier than just trying to have ALL POSITIVE
EMOTIONS ALL THE TIME. This could apply to “The closer you get to the light,
the greater your shadow becomes.” The more you try to push down or hide your
negative emotions in an attempt to remain positive 24/7, the more that
negativity festers beneath the surface and can explode out of you. Maybe this
is what happened with Terra. Dealing with the Darkness is something that has
plagued him since he was a kid, but because light-obsessed Eraqus basically
raised him, he had to repress negativity until it sorta just exploded in BBS. (As
someone with mental health problems who grew up in a family that didn’t talk about
problems or emotions and just pretended everything was fine all the time… my
most recent BBS playthrough hit me kind of hard.) Along these same lines “hearts
of pure light” don’t seem totally healthy either? Maybe it’s different for Princesses
of Heart, because they’re Naturally Occurring, but it makes total sense why my
boy Ven was so fragile after Vanitas got ripped out of him. In any case I am
REALLY SCARED for Sora. I know he was close to getting Norted in DDD, but if he
just tries to stay positive all the time because so many people are counting on
him my boy is going to BREAK.

Now, when I see the darkness cloud animation emanating off a
character, I have context for what that means and what that feels like. When
Terra uses his dark command styles, I used to think “well yeah, he’s mad” but
know I get that he’s pissed. When a
Nort uses dark attacks, I get that he’s channeling his greed, his feelings of
superiority. When Sora goes into Anti-form, I get that this is his moment of
release, where he physically can’t be
his happy-go-lucky self. The black cloaks, which protect people when travelling
in corridors of darkness, have the power to shield
people from negative emotions. Does turning into a heartless feel like being overwhelmed with hopelessness and dread?

This also makes Riku’s arc way more interesting to me! His “road
to dawn” becomes a road to recovery!! Instead of pushing down his negativity,
he lives with it! He uses it to his advantage without letting it overtake him!!!
He doesn’t pretend to be sunshine and rainbows, and his friends still love
him!!!!

I don’t really have a conclusion to this. I’m just really
glad that they did what they did with A Fragmentary Passage.