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Heartless
Denizens of the Realm of Darkness, the Heartless are manifested Hearts morphed into beings of pure Darkness. When negative emotions such as anger, hate, or greed overcome one's Heart, Darkness boils forth and turns that person's Heart into a Heartless. The more Darkness, the bigger the Heartless. Here's an example:
Those are Pureblood Heartless, which come about naturally. They tend to actually look like they're made of darkness. The other kind, Emblem Heartless, came from Ansem's experiments when he was a mad scientist and subsequently multiplied like mad:
The Emblem Heartless come in a wide variety, and tend to look like toys, action figures, or objects rather than Cthulu-esque shadow-creatures.
Heartless are essentially wild animals. They thirst after other people's Hearts and use them to create more Heartless. They are attracted to sources of great light, like Kingdom Hearts or the Hearts of individual worlds.They also go after the Keyblade because they know it's wielder must have a Heart of great strength.
Although they hang around Kingdom Hearts, which is pure Light and want to consume Hearts, also made of Light, Light in itself can hurt them. Because of this, the Keyblade is pain incarnate to Heartless.
Hearts
Every living being in the Realm of Light has a Heart. It seems to allow emotion and can contain both Light and Darkness. For the most part, though, they seem to be made of Light. Darkness will weaken a Heart, but it can be mastered and controlled. Likewise, Hearts of pure Light, like Kairi's and the other Princesses of Heart, have weird powers such as purifying Heartless back into their regular selves. Strong Hearts, which are not necessarily pure, attract the Keyblade as well as Heartless.
Hearts are normally attached to Bodies. If you do it right, shucking the Body will turn you into a Being of Heart. Ansem managed to do this, and in the process gained vast powers of Darkness as well as regaining his youthful vigor, sexy abs, and losing his old man wrinkles.
Totally worth it.
Sora also managed to become a Being of Heart by first turning himself into a Heartless, and than having Kairi purify him with her Princess of Heart powers.
Step 1
Step 2
Being of Heart. Hell yes.
In Sora's case, there was no real difference from when he was a normal kid and when he was a Being of Heart.
Worlds and Keyholes
The multiverse of Kingdom Hearts is known as The World. The World also has smaller universes/worlds/planets.
Each of these planets pretty much acts as its own self contained dimension.
Worlds can also exist on really small scales; Winnie the Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood exists as a coherent world within a small story book.The individual worlds are seperated by impenetrable walls or Barriers.
All of the worlds we've seen lie in the Realm of Light, but there is also a corresponding Realm of Darkness. Each Realm is kind of a parallel universe. They're mostly seperated, since Light hurts Darkness and vice versa, but the Heartless are like the terrible neighbors who hop twenty feet of barbed wire fence, two guard dogs, and a bear trap just to knock over your lawn gnomes.
Like this but with your Heart ripped out of your chest
For Gameplay purposes, each world has it's own name reflecting the overall most important area visited. However, each Disney world is actually more or less an alternate Earth, referred to in game at least once as individual planets. According to Birth By Sleep, worlds can include large stretches of outer space, so the worlds may be out and out universes contained within the Barriers
The worlds each have their own Hearts, which are protected by very large Keyholes. The Keyblade is tied to these Hearts and can unlock or lock the Keyholes. Unlocking the Keyhole will lead to the barriers around that world shattering, leading to a meteor shower of its remnants. Despite being squishy and possibly tied to the lifeblood of the universe, these remnants were later repurposed into Gummi blocks and Gummi ships by King Mickey.
The Princesses of Heart, seven classy ladies whose Hearts uniquely contain no Darkness, can be brought together to form something called a Final Keyhole.
Four of Seven Classy Ladies
And the Final Keyhole:
This Final Keyhole leads to Kingdom Hearts, which is a source of great Light within the vast Realm of Darkness. We don't know what else it does, though, or even what it looks like:ita:.
The Keyblade
Ah, the Keyblade, the centerpiece of the series. The Keyblade is a giant metallic Key, and it's weilded like a sword (or in Sora's case, a giant metal bat). The Keyblade has the ability to lock or unlock the Keyholes of each world. The Keyblades may or may not have minds of their own, as they choose their own wielder and their loyalty can be earned. That said, A Keyblade also has a sort of "default" owner who can more easily command it.
Keyblades are shapeshifting weapons. They can take on different and more powerful forms based on the memories of the wielder symbolized by attaching souveniers in the form of Keychains to it:
Turning the Keyblade into this:
Keyblades also have default forms, Sora's being the Kingdom Key:
Keyblades can be native to either the Dark Realm or the Light Realm. At the end of the first Kingdom Hearts, Sora and Mickey stood on different sides of the Door to Darkness.
In order to properly lock it, both a Light Realm Keyblade and a Dark Realm Keyblade needed to be used. That's why Mickey was absent the entire game: he was trying to find a Dark Realm Keyblade in order to lock the Door from the other side and lock the Heartless away. This is the Keyblade Mickey used:
