We recently covered the new Kingdom Hearts 4 teaser here, which dropped out of nowhere in the middle of a Nintendo Direct and reignited hope in the hearts of thousands of fans around the world. It was an emotional moment, but once the fact that we finally had new lore crumbles sank in, new questions began to appear and old ones resurfaced from the depths of forums, Twitter, and fans' minds.It was recently confirmed that there’ll be a Kingdom Hearts panel at D23, Disney's huge showcase event. The panel’s called "Deep Dive into Kingdom Hearts," and promises "a journey through Light and Darkness as we celebrate 25 years of Kingdom Hearts", featuring creative minds behind the games, VAs, and more!It was at a D23 panel back in 2017 that we got the Toy Story world for Kingdom Hearts 3 reveal, two years before the game's release. So, there’s strong hope that we might get a reveal about KH4 this year as well. The panel will happen on August 15th at 4:30 PM (Pacific Standard Time), and rest assured, we’ll be covering every detail of everything that happens!And, as it couldn’t not happen when talking about Kingdom Hearts, fans were quick to point out a curious detail about this announcement: the date. The panel was announced on July 13th - or 7/13. These are two very significant numbers for the saga, which could’ve been planned just to give fans a quick laugh, could be a huge coincidence, or could be a key element for understanding the lore of the upcoming game, who knows?So, let’s pull a Nomura and list below 7 questions we still have and that, with a touch of luck, we’ll get answers for in KH4, at least partially:7 Mysteries of Kingdom Hearts1 - The Master Of MastersMaster of Masters, also known as MoM, is the new Big Bad of this new arc where the Kingdom Hearts story’s currently at (fittingly called The Lost Master Arc), but no one knows exactly what his intentions are. Unlike the previous villain, Xehanort, who was established right from the start as having evil intentions, the MoM occupies a much harder-to-define gray area.Throughout the games, especially the mobile ones, it’s revealed that the MoM was actually the primary source of everything: from the infighting among the Foretellers (his apprentices) and Xehanort and Luxu becoming exactly who they became, to the Keyblade War itself. Yet, all along, there are little clues here and there suggesting he might have a greater, perhaps noble, objective that hasn’t been explained yet. We also cannot leave out the Darkness, a sentient force with its own plans and schemes. It’s quite possible that we’ll learn the MoM did everything he did to fight it or something of the sort, putting his actions into a new perspective - which, of course, doesn’t absolve him of the suffering and harm he caused.Beyond the obvious questions of what’s the MoM’s plan, how does Sora fit into it, and, above all, what’s his true identity, we have two particularly intriguing mysteries: the full extent of the Book of Prophecies, left by him for his apprentices, and the contents of the Black Box, the box Maleficent and Pete spent the entire third game searching for, and which ends up in Luxu’s possession by the game's ending.The infamous Black Box2 - What exactly happened to the Foretellers?The fate of the Foretellers, MoM’s apprentices mentioned above, was unknown after the end of the First Keyblade War, some theorizing they’d died, others that they’d simply gone into hiding. However, the secret ending of Kingdom Hearts 3 gives us the answer when we see Luxu, another apprentice of the MoM, "summon" them, leading to a reunion of almost all the original apprentices.The Foretellers, the MoM, and LuxuThe only absent one is Ava, leader of the secret Dandelion faction. Until recently, her whereabouts were a complete mystery, but since the teaser's release, many people have speculated that she’s the hooded figure who narrates the video and appears at the beginning. Her presence in Quadratum would explain why she was absent from the reunion with Luxu and the others.However, even if it’s confirmed that the figure is Ava, the question still stands: what have the Foretellers been doing all this time? Did they die in the War and were brought back somehow? Were they simply hiding, away from the action, the whole time? Or did they play crucial roles in events, under different identities? It’s worth noting that we’ve never seen them without their masks, so it’s very much possible that they all have "secret identities", just like how we discovered that Luxu and Xigbar were the same person.3 - Just who are Demyx and Luxord?Speaking of identities, there are two that the entire fandom is desperate to find out: Luxord, the card master, and our beloved water bender, Demyx.Luxord has been playing an increasingly important and mysterious role. We still don't know what does the Wild Card he hands Sora at the end of KH3 mean, claiming it holds the power to turn the tables in the future, nor do we know exactly why he was acting as a chauffeur for Yozora, and we have no idea what role he will play in KH4. We only know that it’ll be significant, given how much he’s been showing up, including in the new teaser.And when it comes to Demyx, we have even fewer clues. He basically vanished from the recent games, after helping the party at the end of KH3 and disappearing, not even fighting in the final battle, and there hasn't been a peep about his whereabouts since. There’s a theory that divides the fandom deeply, with half the fans being true believers and the other half calling the believers crazy: that Demyx is actually the Master of Masters. There’s not exactly any evidence for this, other than the entire mystery, but there’s also no evidence that rules it out, either. It’ld be an interesting plot twist, but for now, we have to wait and see.Dance, water, Dance!They’re the only two members of Organization XIII whose Somebodies, the person they were before becoming Nobodies, are still unknown, so we hope KH4 will at least give us that answer.4 - Where is Sora really from?Over the last few weeks, a theory has been gaining traction among fans: that Sora is originally from Quadratum, and not from Destiny Islands as we’ve believed all this time.This theory relies heavily on a statement Nomura made in a Famitsu interview, saying that, from the perspective of the KH worlds, Quadratum is a fictional world, the other side of reality, and vice versa. And some people started connecting this comment to the famous opening line of KH1: "I've been having these weird thoughts lately. Like, is any of this for real or not?" to theorize that maybe it’s really all a "dream," given that Sora might have originated from a world that’s considered fiction where he ended up. Final Fantasy X much?There’s also a line in KH3 saying that "Sora's destiny is to return home," alongside countless references to memories, dreams, realities, and so on. Beyond this, there isn't a lot of concrete evidence for the theory, aside from details like the recurring KH motif of people falling from the sky symbolizing their arrival in new worlds, something that happens to Sora in the KH1 opening.On the other hand, a point frequently raised by non-believers in this theory is also one of the franchise's biggest memes: Sora's mom. We hear her calling him for dinner right at the start of KH1, implying he has a home and family there. Riku, Kairi, Tidus, Selphie, and all the other residents of Destiny Islands also act as though Sora’s always lived on the islands. Of course, it’s possible that he went there while still a baby somehow, which wouldn't kill the theory, but, given the lack of more concrete evidence at the moment, it’s another case of having to wait and see.5- Everything surrounding YozoraWe’re first introduced to Yozora in the Toy Story world in KH3, when we see a game advertised in the toy store that looks like a nod by Square to itself, or a fun Easter egg: a video game that looks a lot like a Final Fantasy title, called Verum Rex, where he’s the protagonist.The next time he’s mentioned is by the Nameless Star, a character theorized to also come from Verum Rex who, for some unknown reason, ended up in the Final World and met Sora during the KH3 DLC. Sora later meets Yozora in person, and he recognizes the name "Sora" saying also that the form he’s currently in is not his true one, leaving his actual identity completely open to speculation.The battle against him then begins, and an interesting detail is that the fight takes place within Sora's heart, represented by the massive stained-glass flooring familiar to us since the saga's beginning. Battles within a person's heart usually happen only when the participants share a connection between them, such as Sora and Roxas, or Ventus and Vanitas, so it’s safe to assume that Sora and Yozora are connected in some way. Names also carry a lot of meaning in Kingdom Hearts, and the fact that "Sora" means "sky" in Japanese while "Yozora" means "night sky" is certainly no coincidence.And the outcome of this fight also brings us another certainty. If Yozora wins, Sora is crystallized in the center of a huge crystal, and Yozora declares that he’ll save him. Yozora then closes his eyes, wakes up in a car, and thinks the same first lines as Sora in KH1 ("I've been having these weird thoughts lately. Like, is any of this for real or not?").If he loses the fight, Yozora gradually disappears, declaring that he's not needed yet. Sora reappears in the Final World, and Yozora in the car. It's revealed that he's in Luxord's Uber, and we have a recreation of the cutscene from the late Final Fantasy Versus XIII.And for now, that's it. It's quite clear that his goal is to save or help Sora in some way, but we don't know what their connection is, what’s his full objective, the identity of the Nameless Star, Verum Rex's connection to Quadratum and the KH worlds… We have a lot of questions surrounding him, but fortunately everything points to Yozora being one of the core characters in the upcoming games, so at least we'll have some answers! How many new questions will definitely arise is another story…6- Whatever the characters from Dark Road and UnionX got going onWe already have Strelitzia more than confirmed, a character who was very important in the mobiles. The new teaser gave us appearances like Vali, one of Xehanort’s upperclassmen from Dark Road, and Sigurd, another figure straight from the mobile games.We also don't know the exact current whereabouts of Skuld or Brain, two other key characters from those games, though theories exist and they’ve played crucial roles in the entire setup for the upcoming one. Given those roles, it’s likely they’ll show up in the future as well, even if only to close off their story arcs.7 - Who, exactly, is Subject X?Everything we know about this character comes from the Secret Reports in Kingdom Hearts 3, secret documents that became a staple of the series. Through them, we learn that she simply appeared in Radiant Garden one day, suffering from amnesia, and the only thing she could remember was that she had "four friends and a key."One of the Secret Reports about Subject XAfter being found, Subject X was held captive by Xehanort while he experimented on her, and he concluded that she was a traveler from another point in time, possibly the Age of Fairy Tales, i.e., the mobile games. At one point, she met Lea and Isa, Axel and Saix’s somebodies, and befriended them, who in turn made a plan to set her free. However, before they could do so, Subject X was taken away by "a man with an eyepatch", meaning Braig, the somebody of Xigbar, who is secretly Luxu. Simple, right!?It’s unlikely that she’s a brand-new character we’ve never seen before, so we’re left to figure out who she is. The three main possibilities were Ava, Skuld, and Strelitzia, all characters from Union X whose fates were unknown, but Nomura confirmed in the Kingdom Hearts 3 Ultimania that she’s not Ava. As for Strelitzia, we now know she’s in Quadratum with Sora, and all signs point to her having been there since she was murdered in the mobile game.SkuldThat leaves Skuld. In Axel's profile in the Kingdom Hearts Character Files book, he describes the mysterious girl from his past as having black hair, which coincidentally Skuld also has. Everything points to it being her, but we still don’t have official in-story confirmation.ConclusionKingdom Hearts is famous for leaving many questions, clues, and mysteries unsolved, and even by the point when all those questions are answered, we’ll certainly have new ones to make. Ultimately, however, this is one of the characteristics that makes the series so beloved by fans, and one of the things that fuels community theories, keeping the fanbase so engaged and passionate.Did we miss any important questions? Do you have any doubts about specific points we didn't mention here? Let us know in the comments!Thanks for reading, and see you next time!
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