*pulls up a chair and a snack* so anyway , I think you should write one of your beautiful Silas essays over Terraโs internalized homophobia / modern Terraโs Catholic guilt . As a treat . To me . โบ๏ธ
cracks my knuckles. to really get into this one, there's some metaphors here that are really important to this framing. the biggest one being that eraqus' teachings are in reference to/a metaphor for the extremist teachings of the catholic church in regards to christianity/christian values. i'm saying this early because if you're not comfortable with/don't want to read discussions of religion, now is the time to scroll away.
even ignoring all of the blatant church imagery within the land of departure itself (the oversized stained glass windows, the white building with high arches, steeples on the outside that are very deliberately shaped and placed to emulate the appearance of a cross at the top, etc. ), the ideology that eraqus peddles is meant to make him seem like a zealot, clinging very strongly to his extremist ideals about good and bad in the same way that, in general, the christian and catholic churches do. this is a generalization and massively so, but a lot of us with religious trauma have experienced rejection and harassment under the guise of religious beliefs. one could argue that eraqus treats his personal philosophy as gospel truth, believing darkness to be the root of all evil and therefore of all sin, whereas light is what is good and right and what should be followed. and not only is eraqus an extremist, he actively grooms aqua, terra, and ventus to, on some level, uphold and carry these same beliefs. the difference between the three is that aqua embodies and lives by it, terra is rejected by it, and ventus rejects eraqus' teachings, but i'm only here to focus on terra.
when i talk about terra having catholic guilt or more jokingly being a sheltered catholic boy, i mean that under the lens of him having legitimate religious trauma from eraqus' teachings because it is eraqus' teachings that ultimately lead to the wayfinder trios' downfalls. aqua and terra both carry the overarching belief that darkness is inherently bad, and only exists if you have evil or impure intentions or thoughts. i want to focus specifically on having impure thoughts, as thoughtcrime is a very real thing in extremist religions to maintain a sense of control and righteousness. now, given terra's upbringing, you may argue that there's not any room for terra to experience homophobia from anyone, let alone enough to internalize it, but what he has isn't blatantly internalized homophobia, but something a little more abstract, that being internalized self-hatred, which is just as important in extremist teachings.
according to kingdom hearts lore that doesn't blatantly contradict itself, darkness is born from negative thoughts and emotions, and this darkness can consume someone entirely, body and soul, and being lost in this darkness changes a person. now, terra wasn't consumed by his own darkness, but the presence of his darkness stemming from what it did makes him vulnerable to manipulation, much like people of faith may experience when their faith rejects them for being who they are. terra experiences this both due to eraqus' extremism and his relatively sheltered lifestyle. he didn't have exposure to other people besides aqua, ventus, and eraqus, and as such, didn't have much exposure to what the outside world is like. as darkness is typically viewed as straying from the norm, and since darkness is caused by negative thoughts and emotions, what i'm saying is that terra's darkness was caused by the hatred he holds towards himself for feeling different, which circles back to my point about thoughtcrime in extremist religious spaces. now, i'm aware that i'm reaching a bit, but this is my blog and i can make all the giant reaches i want to, but the land of departure is effectively cut off from the rest of the worlds for the most part, existing as a world that is neither of light nor of darkness, but still exists within the realm of the kingdom hearts universe. as far as my own headcanons go, terra is only slightly aware of what would be considered normal romance, only vaguely remembering his own parents as he was so young when he was taken in by eraqus.
now i'm also going to rope in some of my aqua headcanons so again, bear with me. but terra isn't as oblivious as some people want him to be. he would be painfully aware of the fact that aqua holds some kind of feelings towards him that he is unable to reciprocate simply because he will always view her as more of a sister to him than a potential romantic partner. however, terra knows there's a certain expectation that, even if it's not with aqua, he may eventually find someone he's interested in and settle down and that it's expected he'll fall in love with a girl, which is something he doesn't want. so that expectation, combined with his growing awareness that aqua feels something for him, is what ultimately leads to terra's dual crisis of faith and of sexuality, because he simply cannot imagine himself being with not only aqua in a romantic sense, but any woman. this train of thought specifically is the impure thoughts that spark terra's darkness, but his darkness is fueled by his self-inflicted punishment for this thoughtcrime through the way he represses himself.
this is the part where i finally get to talk about why i call this catholic guilt in reference to terra's trauma from eraqus and his teachings. the concept of catholic guilt is something of both a modern phenomenon and a borderline satirical trope in media, referring to the act of extreme self-flagellation, or blaming yourself for the wrongs that happen in your world as you perceive it. it's most common among people who were raised catholic, which is a much stricter sect of christianity to some extent, but unlike other sects of christianity, catholicism focuses extremely on the sacraments, particularly confessing one's sins for absolution. bear with me, but this also hinges on darkness being a metaphor for sin/sinful thoughts and light as a metaphor for innocence and purity, which is a bit more complicated than i really want to get into right now. point being, terra is unable to absolve himself of his perceived sin because he has no one to confess them to, and as such, falls into the trope of catholic guilt because he is haunted by the sins he perceives himself to carry and thus, being unable to absolve himself of these perceived sins, he tortures himself about it for lack of a better word.
how does terra torture himself over his perceived sins, you might ask ?? through repressing himself into the roles that he believes he must fill in order to make up for his wrongdoings. since he cannot absolve himself through confessing his sins, he tries to absolve himself of his guilt through paying penance, but deep down, he knows he cannot absolve himself of his original sin, that being his sexuality and the darkness it planted in him. this is because it's not something about himself that terra can change, though at some points in his life, like many religious and closeted gay people, he has tried. while kingdom hearts lacks a true christian god for him to pray to, he tries to convince himself that he could change it, that it's an inherent character flaw for him to correct rather than an inalienable part of his identity that he needs to learn to make peace with. this is a viewpoint and an ideal that terra only holds towards himself, because, circling back to everything i talked about regarding eraqus and his teachings, for so long terra has been conditioned to view himself as inherently flawed and bad for having darkness in him that was able to be manipulated, darkness that was put there in part by terra's self loathing inflicted by the isolation of growing up under the guidance of a religious zealot. now this isn't a perfect metaphor, i'm not at all claiming it is. like i said, there is no equivalent of a christian god in the kingdom hearts universe, the catholic guilt primarily applies to modern verses where such a thing does exist. however, terra's experiences very closely mirror the experiences of many children who are raised within the church/organized religion and are taught to hate parts of themself that they cannot change, and in general, terra's arc is extremely queer coded ( which is an essay for another day, this has gone on long enough and has taken me too long to get to the point of ), given that his character's entire resolution is acceptance of himself, darkness and all, which gives him strength, and the ultimate ending for his arc is finding not only inner peace through his self acceptance, but finding love as well.
