MX's youth plan actually has a point now

[Eraser Rain]

I feel like this should be obvious, but food for thought.

Back in BBS, MX took over Terra as a means to extend his lifespan. If KH would make him beyond human, we came to agree that taking over Terra was essentially redundant if MX planned on becoming a higher being (well, it's redundant if KH makes him immortal/extends his mortality, which is a pretty fair assumption). However, I think they fixed this issue in DDD.

One of the rules in time-traveling is that you can only travel to a time where you exist in the flow of time. Perhaps by extending his lifespan, MX has a larger time frame for his counterparts from other times to visit him in (for lack of better wording). In other words, he may have extended his lifespan as a means to exist during the gathering of the 7 lights and 13 darknesses. Without him, there are no darknesses.

Now for the question: Was surviving until the gathering planned, or a coincidence?

[billyzanesucks]

Now for the question: Was surviving until the gathering planned, or a coincidence?

MX: There is no coincidence in fate!

It sounded like all the Xehanorts knew what was going to happen.

[Eraser Rain]

The problem is that if he planned it all, the first X-Blade would have been planned to fail. I think both of us can agree that that'd be stupid :v

[Sephiroth0812]

MX: There is no coincidence in fate!

It sounded like all the Xehanorts knew what was going to happen.

That's just MX's smug way of denying any responsibility for his actions.
After all, it's easy to escape into pointing at "fate" when it were his own schemes all along which caused all this to happen, not some "higher power" or predetermined stuff.
Mickey was perfectly right at accusing Xehanort, as he's the one who's toying with numerous other people's fates like in a giant chess game.
This only serves to drive home the point that Xehanort cares absolutely nothing about the lives of others and only for his twisted goals, justifying it with "Fate says so" as an excuse, the total opposite of Sora, who values the lives of others, even those that, by definition, should not exist above any ambitions for power.

And that's what makes Xehanort a truly despicable, but love to hate main villain.

[Luap]

YMX forgets about time travel after KH3D.
In BBS, MX is unaware of time travel.
He was really trying to create X-Blade in BBS.
And taking Terra's body was a precaution. He knew it was possible he could fail with Ventus and Vanitas, so he wanted to live longer so that he could collect the 13 Darknesses if he had to.
But his plan is to collect 13 people and implant his heart into them. So Org. XIII is created. But then Ansem SOD discovers time travel. He learns that most of Org. XIII will fail and creates the plan to collect different Xehanort's across the timeline.

[billyzanesucks]

I'm just saying, YX himself said they knew everything that would happen up to the point of their gathering. I also have to doubt that he just forgot about time travel.

[Eraser Rain]

The forging of the first X-Blade kinda screws things up. If he was preparing for the 13 darknesses, he probably knew of the correct way to forge the X-Blade, so why bother with the first? Or was he both unsure and impatient of the 7/13 method?

[Luap]

He was impatient. In KH3D he admits he was being too hasty.

[Sephiroth0812]

The forging of the first X-Blade kinda screws things up. If he was preparing for the 13 darknesses, he probably knew of the correct way to forge the X-Blade, so why bother with the first? Or was he both unsure and impatient of the 7/13 method?

It also doesn't add up with Xehanort writing in his reports (which were written before BBS) that the "two-pure-hearts"-variant is the only way, not just the short-cut, inappropriate way which results only in an unstable, imperfect X-blade as we now learn in DDD.
If MX knew the 7/13 method during BBS, he definitely hid it well.

[gelandporn]

I actually think it's just the opposite, I think his youth plan makes less sense now.

There was never any indicator in BbS that MX himself wanted to be the one to open the door to KH. Had that been the case, then I think he would have focused on making his own heart pure darkness and then sought out a heart of pure light. Rather, he simply wanted to live long enough to be a witness to this process. He wanted to know what lay beyond the Keyblade War, but he didn't necessarily want to be at the center of it. In this context, Terra's role made sense.

Now? Eh. I mean, you can still come up with a reasonable explanation but it's not as strong, especially when you consider that MX wanted 12 other versions of himself. There doesn't seem to be as much of a need for him to find a new body, unless you reason that MX needed his "core" or what have you in tact so that he could continue planting seeds. But then it doesn't make much sense that he would choose Terra. Xemnas and Ansem become part of the 13 darknesses, so I'm not sure why you would choose to have your new vessel also be a contributor of the darknesses. What I mean is that, well, MX himself is one of the darknesses, so going into the vessel of someone else who you plan to use as a darkness seems ridiculous because you actually wind up with one less darkness due to that combination. And the only way around that is to suggest that MX knew the whole time that he'd be able to split into Ansem and Xemnas, and be able to come back as himself. If I sound confusing, well, that's the result of this retcon.

It's not a plot hole by any means but the logic isn't as sound. It was much more straightforward in BbS.

[Sephiroth0812]

I actually think it's just the opposite, I think his youth plan makes less sense now.

There was never any indicator in BbS that MX himself wanted to be the one to open the door to KH. Had that been the case, then I think he would have focused on making his own heart pure darkness and then sought out a heart of pure light. Rather, he simply wanted to live long enough to be a witness to this process. He wanted to know what lay beyond the Keyblade War, but he didn't necessarily want to be at the center of it. In this context, Terra's role made sense.

Now? Eh. I mean, you can still come up with a reasonable explanation but it's not as strong, especially when you consider that MX wanted 12 other versions of himself. There doesn't seem to be as much of a need for him to find a new body, unless you reason that MX needed his "core" or what have you in tact so that he could continue planting seeds. But then it doesn't make much sense that he would choose Terra. Xemnas and Ansem become part of the 13 darknesses, so I'm not sure why you would choose to have your new vessel also be a contributor of the darknesses. What I mean is that, well, MX himself is one of the darknesses, so going into the vessel of someone else who you plan to use as a darkness seems ridiculous because you actually wind up with one less darkness due to that combination. And the only way around that is to suggest that MX knew the whole time that he'd be able to split into Ansem and Xemnas, and be able to come back as himself. If I sound confusing, well, that's the result of this retcon.

It's not a plot hole by any means but the logic isn't as sound. It was much more straightforward in BbS.

While I agree that the whole issue became a tad iffier now in regards to the events of BBS, that may also contribute to still possible translation issues with Japanese.
Clear is that if Master Xehanort already knew all the stuff that would result from BBS it would make little to no sense at all. However, if only the time-travelling Young Xehanort knows, now that would be a situation that is at least explainable.

That MX was the one who wanted to open the door to KH was however hinted in BBS. When he confronted TAV in the Keyblade Graveyard he spoke of the one, ultimate key with the words: "And it will soon belong to me." cue pointing at Ven, "X-blade".
That Xehanort didn't want his own heart to be incorporated into the X-blade makes also sense since he doesn't want to tie his heart to something that he can't completely control.
If everything had gone to plan in BBS (meaning no Lingering Sentiment), Terra-Xehanort would surely have subdued/enslaved Vanitas and take the X-blade for himself with both Ven's and Vanitas' hearts inside.
After all, everyone Xehanort comes across is only used as a tool, so why would Vanitas make a difference?

I also don't think that Xehanort originally planned to make Terra one of his "darknesses". The 13 darknesses-plan is after all a backup plan, and Xehanort originally intended to use Terra's body as his new main host, or as you said, the container for the "core" of his being. As said by Nomura in the Ultimania, the reason why Xehanort returned in his "old form" and the actual status of Eraqus and Terra is a mystery at the moment, but I could imagine that Terra's and Eraqus' continued resistance forced Xehanort to slightly adjust his plans and give up on using Terra's body as his new "main host container" because he was somehow hampered/handicapped while his main essence was inside Terra.
This is the bit:

So he choose instead to turn Terra (if he's really one of the 13, which isn't truly confirmed yet, as Xehanort only hinted at him being "at his side" as in "unavailable for the seven", not that he's an active member) into one of his remotely controlled "vessels".

Add on top of this the statement:

and we see that Nomura is again deliberately leaving out some stuff that prevents us from explaining the issue fully and connect it correctly with the Terra-Xehanort, Old Xehanort-mess and BBS-Events.
Information deliberately left out is indeed not a plot hole, but I seriously wonder why, with all the other still open mysteries, Nomura had to add this one additionally on top.

If we look at it in its entirety, the Xehanort/Terra/Eraqus-mess and nearly everything regarding Xehanort has not been cleared up the slightest, but rather gotten even more complex.
The point is driven home even with more emphasis by Nomura mentioning Ansem SoD returning several times despite being defeated in KH 1.
There are many puzzle pieces missing here, and I can only hope that KH 3 will fill them in without forgetting any, lol.

[Eraser Rain]

There was never any indicator in BbS that MX himself wanted to be the one to open the door to KH. Had that been the case, then I think he would have focused on making his own heart pure darkness and then sought out a heart of pure light. Rather, he simply wanted to live long enough to be a witness to this process. He wanted to know what lay beyond the Keyblade War, but he didn't necessarily want to be at the center of it. In this context, Terra's role made sense.

In addition to Sephiroth's response, Xemnas wanted KH to recreate the universe as a higher being. While MX and Xemnas obviously aren't the same person, I don't find it too much of a stretch to speculate that Xemnas' intentions may have originated from MX.

But then it doesn't make much sense that he would choose Terra. Xemnas and Ansem become part of the 13 darknesses, so I'm not sure why you would choose to have your new vessel also be a contributor of the darknesses. What I mean is that, well, MX himself is one of the darknesses, so going into the vessel of someone else who you plan to use as a darkness seems ridiculous because you actually wind up with one less darkness due to that combination.

Either way, MX loses one darkness. If he didn't take over Terra, he probably would have died of old age before the gathering. There's always time-traveling (as in, MX travels to a time in the future where his cloned heart/s still exist), but who knows if it works with clones of your heart?

[gelandporn]

That MX was the one who wanted to open the door to KH was however hinted in BBS. When he confronted TAV in the Keyblade Graveyard he spoke of the one, ultimate key with the words: "And it will soon belong to me." cue pointing at Ven, "X-blade".
That Xehanort didn't want his own heart to be incorporated into the X-blade makes also sense since he doesn't want to tie his heart to something that he can't completely control.
If everything had gone to plan in BBS (meaning no Lingering Sentiment), Terra-Xehanort would surely have subdued/enslaved Vanitas and take the X-blade for himself with both Ven's and Vanitas' hearts inside.
After all, everyone Xehanort comes across is only used as a tool, so why would Vanitas make a difference?

Nevermind, I actually checked and it's stated outright in the Xehanort Reports: "If I become the first to open Kingdom Hearts' door, I can create the Next World in which light and darkness exist in perfect equilibrium."

I don't think the idea of subduing/enslaving Vanitas is plausible though. What we saw was a fraction of the X-Blade's power. Had a complete X-Blade been forged, I'd wager there's no way MX would have stood a chance against Vanitas. His only hope would have been convincing Vanitas to give him the X-Blade somehow, and good luck with that, especially considering how much of a wild card he is (as he has disobeyed MX before). Moreover, how would MX even know that he could wield the X-Blade? One would figure that it belongs to the ones who forged it in the same way that ordinary keyblades belong to their wielders.

... Unless Vanitas having a piece of MX's heart would grant him the ability to wield it. And that could additionally explain how he expected Vanitas to hand the X-Blade over. Perhaps MX didn’t plant a piece of his heart in Vanitas until sometime after Vanitas attempted to destroy Ven. In doing so, he may have straightened Vanitas out and assured that their wills were in line.

But so if MX was the one who wanted to open the door, then that does bring us back to the initial issue presented in this topic. What would he need Terra as his vessel for? And I still think there are a couple easy answers to the question that, prior to the retcons of DDD, make plenty of sense:

His frail old body could not survive the process of becoming “something far greater than human.” He needed a younger and stronger vessel that could endure.
Or, simply, he was doing it for insurance. If something went wrong in attempting to forge the X-Blade and opening the door to KH (which it did), he would need to start over, and thus he would need a younger body to increase his odds of survival to achieve that goal.

I also don't think that Xehanort originally planned to make Terra one of his "darknesses". The 13 darknesses-plan is after all a backup plan, and Xehanort originally intended to use Terra's body as his new main host, or as you said, the container for the "core" of his being. As said by Nomura in the Ultimania, the reason why Xehanort returned in his "old form" and the actual status of Eraqus and Terra is a mystery at the moment, but I could imagine that Terra's and Eraqus' continued resistance forced Xehanort to slightly adjust his plans and give up on using Terra's body as his new "main host container" because he was somehow hampered/handicapped while his main essence was inside Terra.
This is the bit:
So he choose instead to turn Terra (if he's really one of the 13, which isn't truly confirmed yet, as Xehanort only hinted at him being "at his side" as in "unavailable for the seven", not that he's an active member) into one of his remotely controlled "vessels".

Well, the 13 darknesses is not the backup plan so much as it is the original plan that MX chose to forgo. Which I still find to be ridiculous. Where is the logic there, what convinced MX that using only 2 out of a necessary 20 people would produce a complete X-Blade?

And he still clearly had the 13 darknesses in mind even if he had not collected all 13 at that stage. He had Vanitas and Braig.

If we look at it in its entirety, the Xehanort/Terra/Eraqus-mess and nearly everything regarding Xehanort has not been cleared up the slightest, but rather gotten even more complex.

Agreed.

[Memory Master]

Well, the 13 darknesses is not the backup plan so much as it is the original plan that MX chose to forgo. Which I still find to be ridiculous. Where is the logic there, what convinced MX that using only 2 out of a necessary 20 people would produce a complete X-Blade?

And he still clearly had the 13 darknesses in mind even if he had not collected all 13 at that stage. He had Vanitas and Braig.

Well I obviously none of the 7 guardians of light have hearts of pure light (Except Ventus) and none of the 13 Seekers of Darkness have hearts of pure darkness (Except Vanitas is he is one of them). So I think MX in is impatience was attempting to use a heart of pure darkness and a heart of pure light, thinking that if the two hearts were of pure darkness and light then it would act as worthy substitutes to the true method.

In my opinion I think Nomura would have just been best to go with this explanation: "Xehanort had always planned to have 13 Seekers of Darkness clash with 7 Guardians of Light. However he knew such a plan could take a long time. Because of this he wanted to test to see if the legend of the X-Blade was true and thus he had Ventus and Vanitas clash to see if they would forge an incomplete X-Blade. If they succeeded then he could go ahead with collecting the 13 Seekers of Darkness and 7 Guardians of Light. To ensure his survival he needed a younger vessel and this is where Terra came in. LAUGHS!!!"

So yeah I would have just said that the plan with Vanitas and Ventus in BBS was a test to see if the X-Blade legends were true before he went and spent years gathering all the pieces needed to forge the complete X-Blade, and Terra would be his vessel to ensure he would live long enough to do so.

[Sephiroth0812]

Nevermind, I actually checked and it's stated outright in the Xehanort Reports: "If I become the first to open Kingdom Hearts' door, I can create the Next World in which light and darkness exist in perfect equilibrium."

I don't think the idea of subduing/enslaving Vanitas is plausible though. What we saw was a fraction of the X-Blade's power. Had a complete X-Blade been forged, I'd wager there's no way MX would have stood a chance against Vanitas. His only hope would have been convincing Vanitas to give him the X-Blade somehow, and good luck with that, especially considering how much of a wild card he is (as he has disobeyed MX before). Moreover, how would MX even know that he could wield the X-Blade? One would figure that it belongs to the ones who forged it in the same way that ordinary keyblades belong to their wielders.

... Unless Vanitas having a piece of MX's heart would grant him the ability to wield it. And that could additionally explain how he expected Vanitas to hand the X-Blade over. Perhaps MX didn’t plant a piece of his heart in Vanitas until sometime after Vanitas attempted to destroy Ven. In doing so, he may have straightened Vanitas out and assured that their wills were in line.

But so if MX was the one who wanted to open the door, then that does bring us back to the initial issue presented in this topic. What would he need Terra as his vessel for? And I still think there are a couple easy answers to the question that, prior to the retcons of DDD, make plenty of sense:

His frail old body could not survive the process of becoming “something far greater than human.” He needed a younger and stronger vessel that could endure.
Or, simply, he was doing it for insurance. If something went wrong in attempting to forge the X-Blade and opening the door to KH (which it did), he would need to start over, and thus he would need a younger body to increase his odds of survival to achieve that goal.

Well, the 13 darknesses is not the backup plan so much as it is the original plan that MX chose to forgo. Which I still find to be ridiculous. Where is the logic there, what convinced MX that using only 2 out of a necessary 20 people would produce a complete X-Blade?

And he still clearly had the 13 darknesses in mind even if he had not collected all 13 at that stage. He had Vanitas and Braig.

Agreed.

Why would that not be plausible? If everything went right Xehanort would have had access to his own enourmous powers, Terra's younger body (which is way stronger than Ven's skinny frame) and Terra's powers on top.
Not to mention Vanitas has the golden Xehanort eyes so he is most likely a Xehanort pawn anyways. Xehanort would not even have to fight, he would just flick a finger and take control of Vanitas, like he took control of Young Xehanort to fight Riku.
According to Nomura, Master Xehanort can choose to directly control his seeds by extending his own consciousness to them, completely suppressing their own will and consciousness when he does so.
That somehow reminds me of what Ultimecia did with Edea in Final Fantasy VIII, only that Xehanort can do it with multiple people at once.

That's allso a possibility, but Vanitas can also have a piece of Xehanort all along and still act on his own will just fine. As we see with Braig and Xemnas (or young Xehanort) they all can freely act to a certain degree with their own will as long as Xehanort doesn't take over fully.
Then there's also of course the question how fast the Xehanort piece inside Vanitas would have developed, considering that Vanitas' own heart of pure darkness holding his own will was around as well.
On the other hand though, we know that Vanitas had Sora's face and hairstyle (not color) ever since newborn Sora had connected with Ven, however do we ever get his eye color mentioned anywhere before? Had he always the golden eyes? Then there was some Xehanort from the very beginning, if not...well, derp, it's not really confirmable, only speculation.

Why would he need Terra's body? Your explanation makes quite some sense, although I do not find the simple reason that he wanted a younger, fitter body as his "main" host that farfetched. If he could, I bet he would have preferred to pop up in Terra's body in the throne room in DDD.
The Ultimania explicitly states the whereabouts of Terra's heart and body to be a mystery, so I tend to assume that Terra (and Eraqus) may have done something that prevented Xehanort from using Terra's body as "main" vessel any longer.

The only problem with that is that it is never anywhere indicated that Xehanort KNEW of the other method at the time of BBS, his report Number VII speaks about the X-blade and he only describes the variant used in BBS (and these reports were written by Xehanort before the events of BBS), and that one also not as a "faster" way or a "test" if the thing really exists.
So IF Xehanort would really already know about the other method at the time of BBS, it would not only be ridiculous but also greatly diminish the events that happened in BBS as a whole in terms of importance. TAV's lives would have been totally destroyed for nearly nothing.

Who says that the "seed"-stuff also regarding Vanitas and Braig has to have to do with the "alternate" X-blade stuff? The way MX worded it in Blank Points it looked merely like he prepared fail-safes to possess if his posession of Terra fails for real. He speaks of "other roads to take" in terms of staying alive to further his plans in any possible way. And (even if the comparison is somewhat lame) when divides his heart in several places like Voldemort did with his soul in HP, the chances that he can be offed for good are pretty slim.

Well I obviously none of the 7 guardians of light have hearts of pure light (Except Ventus) and none of the 13 Seekers of Darkness have hearts of pure darkness (Except Vanitas is he is one of them). So I think MX in is impatience was attempting to use a heart of pure darkness and a heart of pure light, thinking that if the two hearts were of pure darkness and light then it would act as worthy substitutes to the true method.

Not exactly, as MX clearly speaks about "pure darkness" in regards to the 13 darknesses:

Yes. It was all my plan. I used the witch to collect the 7 hearts of pure light, while on the other hand I prepared 13 vessels in order to pour pure darkness into them.

It doesn't add up at all that Xehanort would know of the supposed "true" method, since in his Reports he only mentions the two heart-method at all.
So by going what BBS tells us, at that time, MX regarded THIS as the true method:

I have uncovered the Keyblade's ultimate mystery. You see, besides the three families of Keyblades, there is another "Key Blade." While it may sound the same when spoken, it is notated uniquely: "χ-blade." And make no mistake, while it resembles a normal Keyblade, it is something altogether different. Keyblades are said to be man-made counterparts to Kingdom Hearts. The χ-blade, however, coexists with Kingdom Hearts. It is only forged when two hearts of equal power intersect—one heart of pure darkness, one heart of pure light. At the time of its forging, Kingdom Hearts appears. It must be noted, though, that this Kingdom Hearts is special. Unlike the Kingdoms brought about forcibly and artificially through the collection of hearts, THIS Kingdom Hearts is a perfect and complete union of ALL the worlds' hearts. Surely it was over this that the ancient Keyblade War was fought.

If MX knew the true method all along he would just waste his time with Vanitas and Ven and gain nothing out of it. Not to mention Ventus would have had his heart destroyed twice for nothing.

In my opinion I think Nomura would have just been best to go with this explanation: "Xehanort had always planned to have 13 Seekers of Darkness clash with 7 Guardians of Light. However he knew such a plan could take a long time. Because of this he wanted to test to see if the legend of the X-Blade was true and thus he had Ventus and Vanitas clash to see if they would forge an incomplete X-Blade. If they succeeded then he could go ahead with collecting the 13 Seekers of Darkness and 7 Guardians of Light. To ensure his survival he needed a younger vessel and this is where Terra came in. LAUGHS!!!"

So yeah I would have just said that the plan with Vanitas and Ventus in BBS was a test to see if the X-Blade legends were true before he went and spent years gathering all the pieces needed to forge the complete X-Blade, and Terra would be his vessel to ensure he would live long enough to do so.

While that explanation could at least make remotely sense it still greatly hampers the meaning of the events in BBS and TAV would in effect have prevented and saved nothing at all because it was in the end inconsequential after all.