watching you watching me

Happy 17th anniversary to Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days!

I think it'd be neat if over the course of the game/his interactions with Sora (and others but mainly Sora) we see Xehanort lose the sort of calm and measured composure he has as Master Xehanort and sort of go back to acting more genuinely like he did in Dark Road. Like, in Dark Road sure YX is a bit stone-faced at times but that's not an act he's putting on or anything he's just not as expressive or adept at social interaction as the others. We see DR-era YX laugh, smile, roll his eyes, cry, mourn, etc. It is only in later versions of Xehanort that he seems to shove all of that back in favor of a more measured/manipulative approach- the main emotions he shows being intentionally played up (to manipulate Terra, for example) or when YMX is being a little shit and taunting Sora. This probably all stems back to what happened in Dark Road- maybe seeing how Baldr became overwhelmed by all the emotions he was feeling/picking up made Xehanort want to completely push all of that away? I don't know, it's been a while since I've watched through DR (or any other cutscenes haha, this is just from memory).