Will Lauriam and Ventus Be Trapped in the Realm of Darkness?

Yes, we’re back to discussions about the Keyblade War era this week, though nothing quite as spoiler-filled, as long as you know the identities of the new Union leaders.

Even before we met Lauriam, the arrival of the third Keyblade wielder picked by Ava caused a lot of questions.

How is it possible for Ventus and Lauriam to have existed during the time of the Keyblade War? How can they exist in the present without having aged?

Lauriam appears noticeably younger here than he does as Marluxia, but him aging more than Ven is not a problem. The earliest in the present-day timeline we’ve seen him is the beginning of 358/2 Days, over a decade after the earliest present-day appearance of Ventus. Lauriam’s age shouldn’t be a concern.

However, we still don’t know how the two of them ended up in the modern era.

Due to the Kingdom Hearts time travel rules as explained by Young Xehanort, time travel is out of the question. How, then, did they arrive at a time hundreds of years in the future?

One theory is that they were trapped in the Realm of Darkness.

Time flows differently in the Realm of Darkness, and Blank Points (as well as A Fragmentary Passage) shows us that Aqua has barely aged in the ten years she’s been trapped. If Lauriam and Ventus end up trapped in the Realm of Darkness, they could spend centuries there and emerge looking the same.

Of course, that raises more questions. How would this happen? Will tensions between the new Union leaders, especially if one is a fake, cause another calamity that sends them to the Realm of Darkness? And if so, how do they escape?

We know nothing about Ventus’s past before he met Xehanort. Ansem the Wise is proof that being in the Realm of Darkness can cause amnesia, and Birth By Sleep also shows us Ven forgetting things due to trauma, so it’s conceivable that he doesn’t remember his time as a Dandelion. As for Lauriam… so much about him is still a mystery.

What do you think? Will Ventus and Lauriam be trapped in the Realm of Darkness after the story of KHUX, allowing them to escape sometime in the present era? Share your thoughts and theories in the comments.

Tags: dandelions, lauriam/marluxia, ventus