Birth by Sleep
Terms and lore
The Land of Departure. Eraqus's home, where he trained Terra, Aqua and Ventus: a castle high in grassy mountains above running water, held in place by four golden chains that run to two pairs of twin peaks. Its great hall is lit only by stained glass and has three thrones at the top. A path lined with small trees climbs to a summit where the three of them went to do nothing.
The Mark of Mastery. The examination that makes an apprentice a Keyblade Master. In Eraqus's words it is "a test of heart," not a competition, and both candidates may pass, or neither. Eraqus had meant to give Terra and Aqua the title without one. The formal test was Xehanort's suggestion, and Xehanort watched it. Aqua passed. Terra failed, for letting darkness show in his hand, and was told there was always next time.
What a Master is for. The knowledge Aqua was entitled to once she passed. Every world has a Keyhole, and a Master knows how to find it and how to seal it. At the Land of Departure the key that does it is the Master's Defender, Eraqus's own Keyblade. If the world is ever threatened, sealing it is not a last resort. It is the duty.
Castle Oblivion. What the Land of Departure became when Aqua sealed it, with the Master's Defender, in the room where she had been taught how. It turned white and became a labyrinth, with no way through for anybody who did not already know what it had been. The room with the thrones stopped being a throne room. Ventus sleeps in the middle throne.
The inheritance rite. How the power to wield a Keyblade is passed on: the chosen person takes the Keyblade in hand, and that is all of it. The words that usually go with it are "In your hand, take this key. And so long as you have the makings, then through this simple act of taking, its wielder you shall one day be made." Terra said them as a joke over the wooden Keyblade he gave Ventus. He said them in earnest, with more besides, to Riku on the beach, though he had never been named a Master. Kairi took hold of Aqua's Keyblade in fright, with no words at all, and it was enough. Aqua reached out to Sora and stopped.
The Lanes Between. The way between worlds, normally forbidden to Eraqus's students and opened to Terra and Aqua for their errand. The dark there has to be kept off, which is what the armour is for. It comes out of what a wielder already wears, a boot, a belt, a plate at the shoulder, and when the shoulder is pressed the rest arrives in a flash of light and closes over them. The Keyblade becomes something to ride: Terra's is built like a bike, Ven's is a board, and Aqua's is two pieces that she stands on.
Corridors of darkness. Terra opened one in the middle of his Master's hall to get Ventus away, a thing he had been taught never to do, and it let Ven out on the islands. At the end, one opened under Terra's own body and pulled it down, and Aqua went in after it.
The Unversed. Monsters turning up all over the worlds and going after the Princesses of Heart. Yen Sid sent the name, and the explanation that they were fledgling emotions that had taken monster form. Vanitas gave Ventus the fuller account while beating him: they came into being when the two of them were split, the negativity taking shape as monsters. They are what Vanitas feels, and they answer to him, and however many are defeated, their negativity flows back into him. He let them loose to lure Ventus away from home and make him stronger. Xehanort had a second use for them: to make the worlds bad enough that Terra would be sent out into them.
The χ-blade. Not one of the Keyblades that Xehanort and Ventus and everybody else carry, but "the other thing." Xehanort named it by its letter: "A most ancient letter. Some say kye, but the meaning is the same. Death. A letter that spells endings." It can be made one way only. The two halves of what Xehanort took apart in the wasteland, Ventus and Vanitas, have to come back together, and they have to do it by fighting, which is the only reason Xehanort ever picked Ventus up. Eraqus would have destroyed Ventus to stop it being made. When it was finally forged it came out wrong, two Keyblades crossed with the teeth turned outward, chipped, with pieces missing. After Ventus destroyed Vanitas inside his own heart, Aqua struck it, and it cracked, came apart, and destroyed itself, taking the wasteland with it as far as anybody could see.
Kingdom Hearts. Xehanort promised that on the day the χ-blade was made, the door would be opened. Kingdom Hearts rose in the sky over the wasteland while the fighting was still going on. Maleficent already knew the name.
The Keyblade Graveyard. The wasteland where dead Keyblades stand in the ground at the angles they fell, and nothing else. Xehanort's account of it: "On this barren soil, Keyblades of light and darkness were locked in combat, as a great Keyblade War raged." It is where he split Ventus in two, where the mirror sent Terra to find him, where Vanitas called Ventus to "the one and only place to spawn" the χ-blade, and where all three friends came together for the last time.
The Princesses of Heart. Seven hearts of pure light in the worlds. Maleficent wants all seven, and offered Terra the job of fetching them. She told him Aurora's heart held the key to controlling all worlds, and afterwards told him he had taken it.
Three teachings about darkness. Eraqus taught that darkness needs to be destroyed, and Aqua believed it. Xehanort told Terra the opposite: "Darkness cannot be destroyed. It can only be channeled." Later, to Eraqus on the floor of his own hall, he added that it "is a beginning, you see, not an end." An old woman in the house where Cinderella lived gave Aqua a third answer: light and darkness have to exist alongside each other, and where darkness sits on a person, the thing to do is not to attack it but to help the light already in them.
Wayfinders. The good luck charms Aqua made the night before the examination, one for each of the three: star-shaped, stained glass in silver frames, each marked with the emblem of Mastery. Somewhere, she said, there is a tree with star-shaped fruit that stands for an unbreakable connection, and friends who carry charms shaped like it will always find their way back to each other. They are supposed to be made of seashells, so she put a spell on hers to make up for it. Aqua's is blue, Ven's is green, and Terra's is orange. A crooked palm tree on the islands where Terra and Aqua met Sora and Riku carries fruit shaped like stars.
The Star Shard. Mickey's way between worlds. In theory he has only to think of where he wants to go. In practice it goes off whenever it wants to and puts him down wherever it likes, and he suspects it is reacting to something.
Moving a heart. Xehanort can open his own heart with his Keyblade. He put a piece of it into Braig, whose eyes went gold and whose ears went pointed. At the Keyblade Graveyard, old and beaten, he unlocked the whole of it and threw it into Terra: "Out with the old and brittle vessel, and in with a younger, stronger new one!" A body that would last was what he had wanted from the start. Ventus, at first, had been too frail to hold him.
The armour in the wasteland. Terra threw off his armour to fight Xehanort. After Xehanort took his body, the empty armour stood up, carrying the last thing Terra had been thinking, which was that he was angry and that the other two had to be got out of this. It summoned its own Keyblade and beat the thing wearing Terra, but it could not get him back. It drove its Keyblade into the ground, said "Aqua, Ven. One day I will set this right," and stopped moving. When the light carried everyone else away, it went round the armour.
Radiant Garden. A city of gardens and fountains under a castle in pale colours, with walls around the town, a square ringed with houses, and a platform shaped like a lotus in the water past the gardens. The castle has a guard in grey uniforms marked with a heart, Braig among them, and the men who work inside it wear white coats.
Characters and where they stand
Terra. Strong, earnest and proud, and desperate to prove himself after failing the Mark of Mastery. He trusts too readily. He took Maleficent's word that he had stolen Aurora's heart and went on believing it, and he took Xehanort's word that darkness could be channeled, then used it on Braig and was shaken by what it did to him. He passed the power to Riku without being a Master. To protect Ventus he fought Eraqus, and Xehanort killed Eraqus in front of him. At the Keyblade Graveyard he beat Xehanort by going further into darkness than ever before, and Xehanort took his body. Terra is now in three places: his body walks about with somebody else operating it, his heart is shut inside the shape that follows that body, and his will stands in the wasteland in his empty armour. Inside, he is still fighting.
Aqua. Dutiful, warm and certain, and the one who keeps her promises. She passed the Mark of Mastery and left with two errands, the second a private one from Eraqus: bring Terra home if the darkness proved too much for him. When Terra learned of it, he called it spying. She gave Kairi the power to wield a Keyblade without meaning to, and stopped short of giving it to Sora. After the fall she put Ventus in the middle throne, sealed the Land of Departure, and went after Terra. In the dark she threw his body back up toward the light and went down in his place with the Master's Defender. She walks there still, holding her charm, and she has promised Ventus she will come back one day to wake him.
Ventus. Kind, eager and loyal, the youngest of the three, and tired of being treated like a kid. He remembered nothing from before the Land of Departure until Xehanort gave it back: a year as Xehanort's apprentice, the darkness pulled out of him to stand up as Vanitas, and a purpose, the χ-blade, which was the only reason he had been picked up. His own Master raised a Keyblade against him for it. He asked his friends to put an end to him, and refused to fight Vanitas until Vanitas threatened them. At the Keyblade Graveyard he was merged with Vanitas against his will, and inside his own heart he destroyed Vanitas and took the darkness back. The heart was too damaged to keep, and it left him. His body sleeps in the middle throne of the sealed castle. When a boy on the islands called out with his heart, Ventus answered.
Master Eraqus. Warm, principled, and convinced that darkness must be destroyed. He loved Terra, meant it when he called the errand a second chance, and quietly asked Aqua to bring him home if the darkness proved too much. He told Ventus he had always lived at the Land of Departure. When he learned what Xehanort wanted the boy for, he tried to destroy Ventus to stop the χ-blade being made, and Terra fought him to protect his friend. On the floor of his own hall he blamed himself for all of it. Xehanort killed him there, and he went into light in Terra's arms. Terra called him his father afterwards.
Master Xehanort. Patient, courteous and always several moves ahead, and he talks about darkness as though correcting a small technical point. He split Ventus in two and left the boy with Eraqus, proposed the examination that Terra failed, and then steered Terra toward darkness at every turn, down to staging his own capture. He wanted the χ-blade and a younger body, and at the Keyblade Graveyard he took Terra's. In the dark he turned his Keyblade on that body to burn Terra out of it, and lost his own memory in the attempt, all of it down to his name. Found in the square at Radiant Garden, the young man gave that name, Xehanort, and was taken into the castle. Terra is still in there with him, and so is another heart, one Xehanort recognised.
Vanitas. The darkness Xehanort pulled out of Ventus's heart, made into a boy in a mask. Sneering and cruel, he calls Xehanort Master and obeys him when it suits him. He commands the Unversed and feels what they are. He goaded Ventus into leaving home, broke the wooden Keyblade in front of Aqua, and threatened to kill Terra and Aqua to make Ventus fight. At the Keyblade Graveyard, his body failing, he forced the merger and forged the χ-blade, broken. Inside Ventus's heart, Ventus destroyed him.
Braig. A guard at the castle in Radiant Garden, mocking and entirely out for himself. He played the villain in a fight Xehanort arranged to push Terra into darkness, in exchange for something he had been promised, and lost his right eye to it. Xehanort put a piece of his own heart into him. He delayed Aqua at the Keyblade Graveyard, and he was pleased to hear the young man in the square give the name Xehanort. He wears a patch now, and walks the castle beside that young man. He asked him whether he was Terra, got no answer, and said he had his back either way.
Mickey. Yen Sid's apprentice, cheerful and brave, who left without telling his master when he learned the worlds were in trouble. He saved Ventus from Vanitas, fought beside Aqua in Radiant Garden, and fought the χ-blade with her at the end, but his Star Shard kept pulling him away. He came home having lost two people and saved neither, and laid his Star Shard and his Keyblade on Yen Sid's desk. Yen Sid gave one of them back, and smiled. He still believes in Ven.
Yen Sid. A sorcerer in a tower who was once a Master and has doffed that mantle. Wise, and careful not to make assumptions. He sent word of the Unversed, told Terra to find Xehanort, sent Ventus after Mickey, and reads the stars: it was he who told Aqua that Eraqus's star had gone out, and who had done it. He had hoped Xehanort's heart would no longer lead him astray.
Maleficent. She speaks gently and at length, and everything she says moves toward what she wants. She wants the seven hearts of pure light. She told Terra he had taken Aurora's, and told Ventus and Aqua the same about him. She knows about other worlds, the Keyblade, the three who carry it, and Kingdom Hearts, because somebody told her. At the top of her mountain she became a dragon, and the man with the sword ended the fight.
Kairi. Four years old, with light in her, chased through Radiant Garden until Aqua and Mickey stepped in. Frightened, she took hold of Aqua's Keyblade, and so received the power to wield one. Aqua put a spell on her charm: one day, when she is in trouble, the light within her will lead her to the light of another, someone to keep her safe. Her grandmother collected her and told an old story about a time when there was nothing but light.
Sora. Four, the younger of the two boys on the islands. Aqua reached out to him and stopped, and asked him instead to stay with Riku and keep him safe if Riku ever started down a dark path alone. He said yes. At the end of a day he cried without knowing why, and called out with his heart. Afterwards, in a round place with his own face under his feet, a heart came down to him and asked whether it could come back, and he told it that it could stay in him and rest until it was better.
Riku. Five, the older boy, who asked Terra whether he had come from somewhere outside the islands. Terra passed him the power to wield a Keyblade with the whole of the rite, and Aqua saw at a glance that someone had. When Sora cried for no reason, it was Riku who told him someone far away must be sad, and that if he called out with his heart, they might hear.
The man who ran the castle. The master of the castle in Radiant Garden, kind to a stranger lying in his square. He asked the young man his name, heard "Xehanort," and had him carried to the castle. Some while later he sat eating ice cream with a child and watched that young man walk past with Braig, and said nothing.
The man in the white coat. One of the men who work in the castle, watchful and quiet. He cares for a small orphan boy whom Ventus pulled out from under the Unversed. What he noticed about Ventus was that there was no darkness in him. Not a small amount. None.
The two boys above the square. The red-haired one was looking for a fight, lost it to Ventus, and declared them friends. What he wants is to be remembered by every person he ever meets, for as long as any of them is alive. His blue-haired friend had heard it all before.
Questions
Is this Ventus the same Ventus who left Daybreak Town in a pod, and where did Xehanort find him?
What was Xehanort apologising for when he left Ventus with Eraqus?
What did Eraqus mean to tell Aqua that a Master must always be conscious of?
Who told Maleficent about the other worlds, the Keyblade and Kingdom Hearts?
What did Xehanort promise Braig?
Why was Braig pleased to hear the young man in the square give the name Xehanort?
Whose heart is standing between Terra and Xehanort inside Terra's body, and how did Xehanort recognise it?
Can Terra ever take his body back?
What will the armour in the wasteland do to set this right?
Who sent Terra's and Ven's Keyblades to Aqua in the dark?
Will Aqua find her way out of the dark?
Will Ventus ever wake?
Will Sora keep his promise to look after Riku?
Fun facts
Who took Aurora's heart. The story leaves it where Maleficent left it: Terra wakes, the heart is gone, and he takes her word that he took it. Tetsuya Nomura was asked directly in the Birth by Sleep Ultimania and answered, "It was Master Xehanort and Maleficent." His reasoning was that "Terra, who has light residing in his heart, is not a being of darkness and therefore didn't steal Aurora's heart." (Translation by krexia, as cited on khwiki.)
Earth, water and wind. Terra is Latin for earth, Aqua for water, and Ventus for wind.
Master Square. Eraqus is an anagram of Square, the company that made the game, just as Yen Sid is Disney spelled backwards. Nomura gave him the name while writing the original plot, then forgot what it meant, and nobody on the team could tell him until a producer remembered.
An empty name. Nomura wanted a name for Vanitas that meant empty, and found the Latin word for emptiness. He liked that it also looked like Ventus.
Started on another console. Development began in June 2005 for the PlayStation 2. It was paused after six months and moved to the PlayStation Portable to take advantage of its multiplayer, and the game came out in Japan on January 9, 2010.