KeyArtYui

something between young xehanort and master xehanort

Hold him gently

They say once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is a pattern… and I think we’ve found one hell of a pattern that links Riku directly with the Final World and reinforces the significance of his sacrifice.

Previously @databoy-reekoo had noticed some striking similarities between Riku’s sacrifice scene, and the logo animation for the Final World (If you haven’t seen that post, please take a look at it before reading this one: x)

The sound effects are nearly identical, save for the metallic sound of the keyblade strike and some surface sounds (compare the logo sounds: x -to the original audio of the sacrifice scene: x ). 

The visuals also hit the same beats- the blast of light that resembles the light coming out of Riku’s keyblade as he protects Sora from the demon tide, and the clouds rushing towards the viewer in a way that creates a tunnel-like effect very similar to the heartless rushing past. 

But maybe you aren’t convinced yet that the logo animation is meant to be a reference to Riku’s sacrifice.  What if I told you there’s more…that the logo animation is actually Riku’s sacrifice from beginning to end from Sora’s perspective, translated into a more symbolic replay of it.

And there’s one big, huge giveaway that makes me certain of this.

The pace of the footsteps, the pause before the blast of light and then the clouds rushing towards the camera as in a time-lapse…it all lines up perfectly.  And to demonstrate even further that it’s from Sora’s perspective, compare the angle of the camera in relation to the ground and horizon line:

A near perfect match.

So we have the footsteps- Riku’s footsteps- and the blast of light- Riku’s light- that match.  But there’s even more reason to believe that the clouds are also part of the replay, beyond just the visual similarities.

Normally in KH openings, water/the ocean is always used to symbolize darkness.  Characters that fall to darkness are shown submerged- like Riku in KH1 or Aqua in Fragmentary Passage.  But in KH3′s opening, that symbolism was nowhere to be seen.  Instead, smoke/clouds were used extensively to symbolize the darkness.

At the end of the OP Sora stands alone under a dark and stormy looking sky.  Then his friends start appearing and this stormy sky is transformed into a cloudy, but bright sky…and finally at the end, there are no more clouds at all.

So, in the logo animation that was already a symbolic representation of Riku’s sacrifice, it makes perfect sense to use the symbol for darkness established at the beginning of the game to represent the waves of heartless rushing past Sora and Riku. (I mentioned this on Databoy-Reekoo’s post too, but the clouds might also be in a reverse time-lapse, a reference to the fact that time is rewound after Riku’s sacrifice, showing that he was also instrumental in making that possible in the first place)

During this symbolic replay of Riku’s sacrifice, we also see these white structures growing out of the water:

Since everything else in this animation has had some underlying meaning, this shouldn’t be disregarded as just a reference to the structures we collect the pieces of Sora on a little later.  As it turns out, the entire structure just so happens to be made of a very symbolically significant material; salt.

More about salt, Covenants of Salt, promises, eternal oaths and wedding ceremonies under the cut ;)

THE GRANDPAS!