Explaining Xehanort's Time Travel

I know there's a time travel explained thread already but...well I dont feel it covers it specifically. Kinda like it's generalized..I dunno it just feels off. I made this for a side blog like the last thread. Hope it's okay to post. Dx

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Yes you read that right. It’s the part the confuses people the most in KH DDD. Many think this is contradictory to the Timeless River door in KH2 or the magic Yen Sid used to Send Sora & Riku back in time at the start of KH DDD.

Well it’s not that it’s contradictory but that it’s just different. The power Xehanort uses, Timeless River, YenSid’s spell or the pasts of Mickey Sora met in the dream worlds.

They’re all different variations of time manipulation. Basically there’s many ways one can alter time in the series.

For this post we’ll focus on Xehanort’s variation. Now to do this I’m gonna have to pull from interviews which honestly I usually dont like to do since they’ve begun to contradict or explain ambiguously but for this it’s essential.
First though we’ll begin with Xehanort’s own explanation of his powers seen in KH DDD:



1) You have to discard your physical body. Xehanort done this as the robed figure Ansem.
2) You can only travel to eras in time that a version of you exists in.
3) You can only move forward upon destination. (whether that means you have to wait or that you can skip forward as much as you want isn’t clarified)
4) The most important rule. You can’t alter that which is meant to occur. Meaning your ability to alter history is little to nonexistent at all.
5) You lose your memory upon return to your proper time yet since memories can't be truly destroyed as said in Chain of Memories they still linger in the subconscious.

It confuses many mostly in regards to rule 1 and 4. Like “how can Xehanort be traveling if he has a body?” It’s simple. The one that began this chain was Ansem, the Xehanort who lacked a body. Like the younger Nort says it all began here:



Ansem while he was still a heartless/heart-hybrid yet formless creature went back in time using his new spectral state of being and found his youngest self. The Xehanort that had yet to leave the islands or gain his keyblade.

It’s here that the interview aspects come into play. The games give a general overview but Nomura gives a detailed one:

Source: http://khcorner.tumblr.com/post/150552624765/what-about-xemnas-and-ansem-essentially-they

Then we add the second account

Source: http://khcorner.tumblr.com/post/150551405170/were-the-13-seekers-of-darkness-who-were-meant-to

Notice the parts in bold.
The crux of this power isn’t just Ansem as the Robed Figure but the old Xehanort himself.

Remember old Nort is in a constant formless state. He ditched his body in BBS and stole Terra’s



What this means is that Xehanort’s heart was in many places but not in it’s original form aka the body he abandoned.

In BBS Xigbar was already shown to be a vessel with his changed eye color, with Vanitas eye color it’s possible he’s one as well and at the end he possessed Terra mainly.

After that he spread himself more by using Terra’s body to create Ansem and Xemnas. Ansem goes on to take Riku’s body giving Ansem both his robed form and his humanoid form.

In DDD we learn Siax is also one his vessels. Point being Xehanort used the decade after BBS to spread himself to many bodies.



Old Xehanort granted them this power but it was Ansem in his robed form that used it. Whether by design or because Ansem realized he had such a power he took upon himself to visit his youngest self.

“But hey! That doesn’t explain rule #1!”

Ah but it does. Ansem was the first to use the power but Old Nort was the source of that power.

Meaning in the simplest terms possible that so long as the older Master Xehanort remained an incomplete being the other versions of himself had free reign to travel in time as they pleased.

That’s why they was “out of time” when the Old Nort fully formed. Now that he was back the power of time was lost to them at least for now or until Xehanort’s next trick for summoning his other selves.

“Hmmm Okay but what about rule #4? The “You can’t alter history” thing?”

That one is self explanatory. It’s a temporal paradox. Even if you dont know what that term means specifically almost everyone knows what it implies due to current story media.

Xehanort brings versions of himself from the past yet they return after a set amount of time as if nothing happened which keeps the past linear.
That is the very root of a paradox. It’s altering something impossibly. It shouldn’t be possible but it’s happening.

This is what Xehanort is doing. He’s creating a paradox were his past is in the present without altering history itself because when the Old Nort reforms they are sent back into the past to live it.

Contradictions

Admittedly this does come with one huge contradiction. Xehanort says history can’t be altered because he’ll forget once he returns to his proper era.
Yet he also says the memories he forgot are “etched” into his heart which Nomura states to “guide” him.

That in of itself is altering history. It’s like a loop. Xehanort is creating the history he says he can’t alter. So…yeah. I commend Nomura on the use of the Novikov Principle but it’s still full of holes.

Either way I hope this helped. =) I’ll make posts for the other versions soon.
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So hope that helps a bit. If you read it all the way through I propose a question to you. If they "ran out of time" when the old Nort came back then how do you think he'll summon his past selves in KH3?