Agrien Ariste

As I’ve recently been replaying KH3 for the third time, it’s got me Thinking, specifically about the black box and those connected to it.

Every foreteller is named after a deadly sin.

• Luxuria/Lust- Luxu

• Avarita/Greed- Ava

• Invidia/Envy- Invi

• Ira/Wrath- Ira

• Acedia/Sloth- Aced

• Gula/Gluttony- Gula

As you may have noticed, the sin of pride, or, going in theme with the latin names,,”Superbia” is completely eliminated from this lineup. Initially, I thought that this meant that MoM himself was intended to represent pride.

I no longer believe that this is the case. And I need you to cast out all thoughts of MoM counting as the 7th foreteller for this theory to work.

There is a clear power imbalance between MoM and the foretellers. He guides them, they look up to him, isn’t one of them. If anything, MoM is more consistently portrayed as something like an mysterious omnipotent entity than anything else.

MoM has not one, but multiple cutscenes in which he claims that his name doesn’t matter, and when he does say it aloud, it’s redacted with a flash of light. I don’t think that this is Nomura trolling his audience. If the author has to tell us the same piece of information multiple times, being that, “MoM’s name is of no importance”, than I believe this is a major hint to the audience rather than a punch-down.

This is where I make the argument that we’ve been asking the wrong question all this time. MoM’s identity isn’t what matters, what matters is the identity of the unaccounted-for foreteller, “Superbia.”

I have an admittedly, kinda flimsy connection, but I need you to go along with it for the sake of the rest of this theory.

Etched into the top of the black box is “XSuper.” This is our only possible hint at its contents. XSuper. Considering we have an unaccounted for Forteller named Superbia, we can conclude that Superbia themself is what is in the box.

The “black box” is more of a “black trunk.”

I understand being doubtful that an entire body could fit into this trunk. So, for this theory to work, Superbia has to be small enough to fit in this box. The only conclusion to be drawn is that Superbia must be a small child. Stay with me.

Now I ask you to ponder the question, “what are the Foretellers purposes?”

Cool. Xehanort tells us himself! The purpose of the foretellers was to trap 7 of the original darknesses within their bodies, so that MoM could discard them.

((Side Note: before you say, “but tumblr-user beefosaur!! we can LITERALLY see MoM’s sprite right there!! clearly this is portraying him as the 7th foreteller!!!” to that I say, I need you to assume that this is Superbia for the sake of argument. This ambiguous figure also fades in slower in the animation. The assumption that this is MoM could be an intentional red-herring.))

But there’s more.

“of the 6 who remained” implies one Foreteller left the lineup. We know who this was, this refers to Luxu, who disappeared for the majority of KHUX. Four were imprisoned in the data-world and two of the those four died there. Ok sure. But “one survived by disguising itself as an ally of the light” ? This is new information, something we haven’t seen yet. YES, like the aforementioned robed-figure, this can be assumed to be about MoM, but as I’ve already established that MoM isn’t a foreteller, this can only be about Superbia.

To recap before my conclusion, these are the rules we’ve established for Superbia’s identity so far:

•They must be small enough to fit inside a trunk.

•They have the ability to trap darkness inside their body.

•They “disguised themself” as an ally of the light.

Ladies, gentleman, and the people that don’t give a frick,, there is only one character who fits this description, and his name is Riku.

The youngest we’ve seen Riku is him when he is 4 years old in BBS, and he is plently tiny enough to fit into a trunk. This checks out.

As for the ability to trap darkness inside them, Riku is the only character other than the foretellers who has been shown to not only have this trait, but for the trait to be portrayed as “unnatural”, as after Zexion finds out Riku has this ability, he quite literally exclaims “what is he!” aloud.

“Disguising themselves as an ally of the light” is kinda self explanatory. Riku is one of the seven lights, but keep in mind that these roles aren’t set-in-stone and are just that, roles. Sora was set up to be a 13th darkness but ended up being a light, just like Xion did. Viewing Riku in this context makes sense. Though, I see it less as “guising itself as an ally of light” and more of “hiding itself among an ally of light” if that makes sense.

But wait. I have even more evidence that Riku is the missing 7th foreteller. Take a look at the last scene in KH3.

We see these chess pieces facing off against sora’s piece. The seventh foreteller’s piece has a heart , with bat wings. Do I even need to elaborate? Riku’s character sigil is a heart, and he’s been consistently been associated with bat wings specifically since KH1.

Speaking of bat wings, look at Riku’s blade.

Hmmm! What do you know!! A Bat wing!! And whoa! What’s that in the middle? MoM’s eye! You know who else’s weapons have MoM’s eyes? Every single one of the foretellers. Notice how, early on in KH3, Riku also completely loses this bat theme as well as the gazing eye entirely from his weapon when Repliku protects him in the dark realm. Hrm. Interesting.

If you subscribe to the Sora-Is-Bait-For-Riku-To-Come-To-Quadratum theory, it makes even more sense. MoM’s evil plot may very well be to draw out the last darkness he wasn’t able to snuff out, the one who disguised itself among the lights, so he can put an end to it once and for all.