The True Nature of Vanitas

The Dark Seeker Saga has reached its conclusion, but new revelations in Union Cross make it feel increasingly likely that we don’t know all there is to know about one villain who seemed fairly straightforward up until now: Vanitas.

(Spoiler warning: this post discusses spoilers from the most recent KHUX story update.)

From Birth By Sleep, which introduced Vanitas, we got a simple enough explanation for his nature. Ventus was born with both light and darkness in his heart, like most people, but when he refused to give in to the darkness, Master Xehanort forcibly extracted it and created a new being.

This being of pure darkness became known as Vanitas, and took on Sora’s appearance due to their connection through Sora. Ventus was left as a person with only light left in his heart.

But new questions about Vanitas began after a conversation in the Re:Mind DLC, in which Sora encounters a presence inside Ventus’s heart that refers to itself as “Darkness.”

Sora questions if it is Vanitas, but gets no answer.

Now, this wasn’t the first time a character calling themselves “Darkness” appeared. We discussed the nature of the mysterious figure called Darkness who spoke to Maleficent in KHUX, theorizing that it could be Luxu, the impostor Union leader, or the unknown cloaked character.

That Re:Mind scene made fans question if Darkness might actually be Vanitas.

Subsequent KHUX updates have made it clear that Darkness is a character in its own right.

Darkness is a formless being able to take on the appearance of others, as well as possess people. It seems to be some sort of hive mind and has a history with the Master of Masters. Yet aspects of Darkness are capable of splitting off from the whole and gaining individual will, which is what happened when Darkness entered Ventus. It split into pure Darkness and pure Light, becoming the entity that the Union leaders face.

Yet no matter how hard the Union leaders fight, they are unable to defeat Darkness. Darkness claims to be impossible to defeat due to having no true form.

Then Ventus says that since Darkness used him to reshape itself into an individual made of pure darkness, he can do the same. He says he will give Darkness a new form that can be defeated.

This suggests that Vanitas is not merely Ventus’s natural darkness, artificially removed by Xehanort, but rather the new form of Darkness forced onto it by Ventus in their confrontation.

If so, we most likely haven’t seen the end of Vanitas, especially since Darkness is being set up as a major antagonist for the next saga.

On the other hand, “Darkness” in Re:Mind never answers Sora when he asks if it is Vanitas. There is a chance that the new form of Darkness and Vanitas are not the same entity after all. I believe there is probably a link between them, but are they exactly the same? We don’t have enough information yet to say that for sure.

What do you think about Darkness, the confrontation with Ventus, and the true nature of Vanitas? Share your thoughts and theories in the comments!

Tags: darkness, vanitas